Holy Hell, I'm Annoying!

So I discovered today, having listened to myself on tape, just how irritating I am. I annoyed myself. No wonder I can irritate people. It's funny hearing yourself in the third person....it's like being able to step back and watch. And watching I found myself annoying. Very annoying. I'm fairly impressed people put up with me.

Perhaps I should shut up more often...

Infact I will, I will physically try to shut up more often.

In other news:

Wait. I have no other news. None I'm gonna blog about anyway.

That sucks. I hate it when my blog just kinda dies. At least it doesn't die in the middle of sente-

How The Hell Am I Still Frackin' Tired?

Somehow, I'm still bloody tired. I sleep hell of alot more than alot of people, but most of the time recently am so tired I just want to fall to sleep. Sure, some nights I can't sleep that explains it, but the rest of the time I should be alright. It's strange. Maybe I'm just destined to be pernemently tired (PS: Hol, I know I spelt permementaly wrong, don't bother pointing it out this time :P).

In other news, I wish I had entered the mock trial. Not because they won, but because I thought up the fool proof defence. Basically, you have the defendant, and the defence witness. This works for the defence witness.

Lawyer: "Is it possible commited "
Defence Witness: "I can honestly say it's not."
Lawyer: "Why?"
Defence Witness: "Because I did."

What can they do? Prove the witness guilty? They still lose the case. The only thing they could try and do is prove the defence witness is lying, but it would be dammed difficult. Fool proof defence! AND there's no reason they wouldn't allow it. Advantage: us!

I want to try that now...

JUST TAKE THE BLOODY REFUND!!!

Okay, so I worked an extra half an hour today, til 5.00. Half an hour after our shop shut. Half an hour of UNPAID work. Why? Because one stupid fucking customer wouldn't take his refund and demanded his non-existant plastic box. He had two, and wanted three. We only had two. Would he leave? NO! So we were ALL left in the store while he just waited, not allowed to leave until all the customers were gone. Asshole.

So I'm tired. And am going cinema, then home, then doing school work. All while tired. Might just sleep and not do homework. And then just tell my teachers it'll be done by Wednesday. It's a good enough excuse, I never hand it in late so I should be allowed once!

My Wallet Died...

No it wasn't stolen. It just died. The zip broke. This is a sad day. I've had that wallet for six years. It's been everywhere with me...hell, it came from Spain in the first place. I even had the certificate of authenticity that came with it (until Hol stole it!) But now it's dead. Rest in peace wallet.

Now I've got a crappy new one that luckily had come free with my bag...

I also now own the saddest t-shirt in the world. It's great....but very sad.

Well That Was A Challenge

Didn't expect this. Just wrote a choose your own adventure for psychology. Damn, those things are an usual challenge, and mine was really short without many different paths. I have new found respect for people who write those.

That is all...

Just thought I'd mention it. Seriously, they are really hard to write!

Serenity

Holy hell! I've been getting into a TV series that's modern. Wouldn't of expected that to happen. Show's Firefly as I mentioned to alot of people. It's actually very good, and very funny (mainly because in a serious show humour from the characters works brilliantly). Sadly it got cancelled and only has 14 episodes, of which I've seen about four. But yeah, I was a little shocked to find a decent modern TV show. Might have to reconisder my old grudgematch...

...Nah, 80's TV still rules.

In other news, my previous moaning was pointed out today by Baird. I feel proud I can at least stand by my moaning as "this is bothering me, here's why, I'm over it," rather than the more general "my life sucks for the following reasons" standard layout. At least my points reflected a single thing that I felt a bit bothered about, and didn't affect my general outlook.

That's enough pathetic attempts at excusing my whining.

Oh, and if you wonder why I called this Serenity, it's the name of the ship in Firefly. I felt "Firefly" was too obvious for a title...

Wow, I'm Whining Alot

Disclaimer: I kinda whined in this blog about Ju Jistu, which is my own fault, but it's as if I'm taking it out on other people. I apologise in advance for my whining, and feel free not to read it because I'm sure you don't give a shit anyway.

I was almost annoyed this morning, to my suprise. This begins with two guys I know taking their Ju Jitsu grading, now putting them a belt above me. Of course, I don't care about that, they're good enough to be at that level, so they are. Anyway, what annoyed me was the realisation I was still weeks at least from taking my grading, after a year on the same belt. These two guys I'd watched rise through green and my own belt in the time I've been on it. This is obviously because I've been missing so many sessions because of my injured back. But, for the first time ever, I considered throwing it in and quitting Ju Jitsu, because it just seems like a futile effort. I'm not convinced I'll EVER get off blue-white belt, and so I was slightly irritated. Especially when I asked Phil (Sensei) to see how well I was doing, and got told to work on it more because I confused my left from my right on one of the moves, using the wrong arm to counter with...

Thus my bad co-ordination has once again set me back.

Luckily, I got home and reconsidered, deciding that it was nobody's fault I actually suck and that I can do better and hopefully pass at some point in my life. So I'm not gonna quit. I'm also gonna try and learn my left stance from my right, and using the right arms to block and counter with! Unfortunatly, a left stance naturally takes me en guard from fencing, and thus I'm used to blocking and attacking with my right arm, instead of blocking with the right and countering with the left.

Once I've worked on that, I'll probably screw something else up and have to work on that for weeks. That's how it normally goes. But at least I'm not gonna quit, and keep at it.

In non-martial arts related news, I completed Half Life 2 today which was disappointing, because I was hoping it would last me longer than that. I've obviously played it FAR too much. I'm gonna up the difficulty and play through it again though, so it's not dead yet. Was a very good game though, and the gravity gun remains the best invention ever. Especially when it gets souped up and you start flinging bodies around!

So...

Well, I just casually decided my entire future. IE: Sent off my UCAS form. Not too happy, because they're all drama, and despite how muchI WANT to do Drama, I'm better at English. So basically, I've just gone for a subject that's not my best, but more enjoyable. Which was probably a bad decision. But I've made it. I'm gonna do Drama somewhere at Uni. Where will it take me? Fuck knows. I wasn't actually planning to live that long, I have faith Bush will destroy the world for us.

I left a Uni blank so that I can ring up and update it later, meaning all is not lost if my decisions go wrong. Still, it's a fairly unpleasant feeling having just decided what you're going to do for the rest of your life.

At least that's out of the way now, and I can get back to worrying about school, life and the general lack of time travel in the world.

In case anyone is wondering, my final line up of Uni's is:

Reading
Exeter
Royal Holloway
Plymouth (Exmouth Campus)
Winchester

Bit dull but still. They're all fairly close to Plymouth, but far enough away to not be living in the same place, which is cool.

And that's the end of that.

When Titles Suck

It's almost as if lately I've been running out of things to blog on. UCAS remains a bitch, although I'm in the process of sending that off, so that's good. I can nip in town and buy Half Life 2 tomorrow as well which is good.

Exams are looming, and I really suck at my current subjects right now, which is bad. Hopefully I can get it together and pass. Should be able to.

Other than that, life goes on. Nothing's changed which makes our lives really boring, at least to blog about. Hence the dwindling amount of blogs I've been posting lately. Sure, I could rant about some random thing, but I haven't been in the mood. Sure I could moan my ass off, after all, that's what 9/10th of the worlds blog users do, but I wont because that's irritating to read. So instead, you'll just have to stick with this.

Fun and Games

So we went over East's and played Halo 2 last night. To be honest, at the time, I wasn't too impressed. I guess I was so sick of Halo I was pretty sceptical and a little hard on my opinion of it. Graphically it's pretty much the best console game I've seen. Gameplay wise from multiplayer, it was alot like the old Halo though, with just a couple bonus features. But, of course, the original Halo was fun and looking back on it playing last night was great fun....even if I horribly sucked. It made me remember the days when Halo was still fun, and I wasn't sick to death of playing it. So that's good. So in conclusion, I was probably too hard on my opinion of Halo 2.

Not worth queing up at midnight to get though...

Aw Double Frack

So I've finally done a personal statement that I'm quite proud of. So I go to access UCAS's website, and do my application. Except my password doesn't work. I try it, and every other one I can possibly think of (ie: Passwords I haven't used in about five years). None work. What the hell is my UCAS password? Did those bastards change it without telling me? Now I'm locked out for the day! Fantastic. Stupid UCAS. They bug me to apply to Uni then wont let me.

So I've fallen even further behind. I blame technology, if I could apply by paper I wouldn't have this problem.

Holy Frack!

Well, as people have probably gathered from my last blog, I didn't have a great weekend. Sunday it turned out I had to work all day. Which wasn't fun. On the bright side, I apparently get time and a half on Sunday, so I'm looking foward to pay day.

I haven't been able to sleep over the weekend either, despite exhaustion. Which was random. It was almost as if I was too tired to sleep!

So, coming back on Monday, I'm not feeling great. First two lessons are okay, and break rolls around. I run into Hol C, and she tells me 'bout this train wreck at the weekend. I never got around to seeing the news so I hadn't heard about it. She tells me how her mum was in it. Seven people died in that crash, and somehow luckily her mum survived completely unhurt. I was pretty much snapped back to reality, realising how little a tough weekend meant. Hol didn't seem too bothered, which was impressive. When I got home, I checked it out in the paper, and it looks like one helluva crash! I'm just glad her mum was okay.

So as usual I'm snapped back to reality by someone elses problem. Seems to happen alot. In fact, if ever anything gets me down someone suddenly has a more serious problem that always pulls me out of it. I'm lucky like that, means I end up worrying 'bout others and not myself. May not sound like a good thing, but it is in the long run.

Thank God Hol's mum was okay.

And yes "Felgercarb" and "Frack" are becoming my subsitute swear words.

Aw Felgercarb!

Well, I very rarely have the sort of day I'd describe as a 'bad day'. Sure, I have days when I feel down, but not days when it feels like everything is on it's quest to ruin life for ya. Today was one of those days.

I was looking foward to it to. I had the day off, probably my last free Saturday until Christmas. Until I was woken up by a phone call. I scrambled out of bed just to miss it. I checked the answer machine and got the message:
"This is from Argos, you're supposed to be working today 10.00-5.00. Where are you?". Aw shit I thought. I really wasn't supposed to be, I had rang up for my hours and been told I wasn't working. Either way I rang them back. No reply. I spent ten minutes trying to get a reply, before switching numbers. Then I spent ten mintues being engaged. Eventually I get through to the managers and they expalin how I am suppoed to be working, and they must of read my hours wrongly over the phone.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, praying they'd say stay home.
"Well, we can move you're hours. If you have plans, don't worry." I should of said I did, but didn't want to lie. By now it's 11.10.
"It's alright." I replied.
"Okay, we'll change them then."
"To what? There's no way I could get in before 12.00."
"How about 12.00-5.30?" I agree and hang up. It's 11.15 and I have no work stuff ready, haven't eaten, and am extremely tired.

I ran out the door, catching sight of a letter from Plymouth University addressed to "Miss Leigh Valentine". Nice touch, fate! Ignoring that I managed to get to the bus stop, but a few mintues late. I waited, praying it'll show up, and just before I give up it does! Phew. That was a bit of luck.

I succesfully made it into work on time, to be told I was working on the conveyor belt. I sighed, glad I actually had some luck finally! The converyer belts were nice and easy, just moving things off the belt and onto the shelves. So I walked in there, smiling that I had an easy job. First thing somebody says to me is:
"Can you get on collection please? We're busy." Fuck. Collection is packed, and I spend the day working my ass off. It's okay though, because I got a 15 minute break which was just enough time to get a drink! Nothing to eat though.

So I continue working, with people working around the clock to seek me out if they had a problem. Like an old lady who seemed to blame me she was waiting for a kettle from the stock room! Or one customer who, after seeing how stressed we were getting, so elegantly put it:
"Who the hell would want to work at Argos?"

On my way out, I get given (finally!) my uniform. A PURPLE shirt. PURPLE!? Out of every colour Argos have...

And it's long sleeved....when most of them are short sleeved. Bastards.

Luckily the day actually ended and I could come home! Except the bus driver wouldn't except my travel pass. Eventually, after some persuading, he was convinced it was actually for this city! And so I got home, tired and angry.

That's okay though, I thought, I have something to write about on my blog. Except, of course, my computer had crashed and wouldn't boot up. So I decide to watch DVDs instead. I stick a DVD in to see "No Play" displayed on the player. Some fiddling later and it works. Some more fiddling and advice over the phone from my brother, and my computer works.

But all in all, I had a pretty bad day!
"You seem stressed." As one of the customers put it.

Yeah, that's because I am!

Recovered

And I'm back! Well, feeling slightly less spent than I was. Still want some time off, but ya know, who doesn't?

I stil feel really worn out, but I think yesterday I was so tired it all really got to me so I had that nice long blog on it. Now I'm back to normal, if you can call what I am normal.

Went to watch Hol have some of her blood stolen today, which was fun. Well, it wasn't fun watching her have a blood test, but that's because I HATE blood tests with all my guts. I bet I felt far worst than she did. Other than that it was cool, helping people out really does make you feel better!

And reminded me of my plan to give blood. Which would be funny, considering how much I hate blood tests, but ya know, I might. I don't even know why I hate them, it's just a dull ache and all blood does is make me hungry!!! I just do for some reason, possibly 'coz when I first had one done I tensed my arm so it all went horribly wrong.

My Uni application needs to be off soon, but I'm just not dealing with it. That's a bummer. I really need that time machine right now....I'd go to the 1980's for a bit, take some time off watching old TV shows with no worries 'coz I can travel to whenever if anything ever did creep up on me....then come back here before the summer to find a Uni and then travel to September and send off my application. Sure I'd be a bit older randomly, but it would work.

Damn. Now I want a time machine!

Even more than usual.

A Big Explosion

I've got a feeling work is somehow piling up on me and getting to me, and I haven't even started my job properly yet! It would sure as hell explain my lack of drive. Earlier, my parents decided to look over my personal statement, and my Dad came in and said "If the personal statement is as important as you say it is, you're gonna have to write something helluva lot better than that!" And I just exploded in response. I was basically so fed up of working on the dammed thing, having it thrown back in my face, I just started yelling back. Which was odd. 'Coz I normally would only ever shout back, not actually start yelling. I literally felt like I was venting the pressure from our work. I have a feeling when Hol mentioned exam fatigue she was right, we've been working non-stop for quite a long time now. Even with our holidays and days off, work is always looming over us and our next exams, and I don't know about anyone else, but it's beginning to get to me I think. Hell, I have it easy really, I have nothing to worry about but my work. No hard job, no girlfriend, no family trouble, no money trouble, it's easy! Yet the pressure is beginning to wear me down. I basically do feel worn down, and I long for a break. But not just a "Have a week off" break. A "You no longer have to worry about anything for a while" break. But that's not gonna happen. I think once the Uni applications are out of the way, I'll be alot less stressed.

On the plus side psychology is proving true, as I agreed to go with Hol to her blood test tomorrow as moral support 'coz Steve has a lesson, helping out. And it actually makes me feel better to help out! I actually want to! Go positive thinking reinforced by helping behaviour (or however they word it in the text book!) I'm certain I would have helped anyway though, I couldn't say no even if I wanted to!

Of course today's extra stress could be from my trip to Marjon's where we got the real life story of an aslyum seeker who had to burn himself all over with an iron just to stop them shipping him back before he could prove the conditions there (they were killing the returners on sight!) He only survived because of help from a friend who gave him financial backing, if he hadn't he would have been returned, which makes you think about all the people who would have been sent back to death because people fail to see what is going on! Pretty stressful to think about, especially when it has a human face.

Then we met a woman speaker, who told us about how (completely unexpectadly as she began the story about a car trip and setting up a youth centre) she was kidnapped for 14 months, beaten and raped at points! And she tells us this with a smile on her face, we were pretty stunned. She even explained about the kidnappers, and how they were so desentised by war they had been turned into the terrorists they were, and weren't just evil men. She actually sympathised with them, some were even friendly. Even the man who raped her (more than once) apprantly just thought it was what should be done because of trashy americain TV shows. (He actually showed her the TV apprantly, he couldn't quite understand why she broke down in tears at some point!) So we were left, contemplating what happened, and I didn't know how to feel. You obviously felt sorry for this woman, but you couldn't blame the kidnappers after the way she put them across, and I was, to be honest, slightly shocked and I think affected inside. Which doesn't usually happen to me. I think it was because I was caught so off-guard. It's so easy to sympathise with the horrors in the world, but its not until my eyes were opened to it I felt that horrible feeling of helplessness. I wanted it to stop, like everyone in the room, but there's sod all you can do. You can't even blame the kidnappers! You just can't do anything! And as for asylum seekers, I've never had bias views anyway, and I've wanted them to be let into the country. Hell, if it was possible, I'd want to let them all in. But this made me realise there's very little ways to help.

I think having that on my mind made me more stressed. I hate to sound like I was seriously effected, I wasn't. Just slightly on the inside. Namely because I didn't know what we were going for, and didn't even have an introduction. The woman who told us her story we were just introduced to as head of a project. We didn't know what had happened to her! The shock really did have quite an effect. An effect that'll probably wear off by tomorrow, but an effect all the same. It was, wierd, to meet someone who had gone through that. And there was nothing inside to feel to match it, there was no reaction that was appropriate, that left a funny feeling inside.

The wierd thing is it actually makes me more sympathetic to the kidnappers after her description of them and how she could literally see how they had been changed by the war from normal people. It means when hearing news reports of kidnapped victims and such, I'll feel sorry for all involved...

Enough sounding like I've just gone on a quest to find God! Conclusion: Work's lots of stuff. Human faces on things are hard to deal with. I'll cope with both. The second one will go away quickly because I know how I think, it'll just go down with the rest of life's expierences, but hopefully something I'll remember. The first won't disappear, but I hope I can get the effort back to deal with my work.

Holy Frack, this is a long blog.

And yes, I did just say Frack. I've been watching to much Battlestar Galactica....

Fleeing From The Cylon Tyranny...

Okay, before I begin, I am aware of how sad I'm gonna sound. But let's admit it, I'm sad anyway. So, I managed to get the entire series of the old sci-fi show Battlestar Galatica on DVD. As sci-fi goes, my liking was pretty much limited to Star Wars, I used to like Star Trek but now I hate the dammed show. I can't even bare to watch it. But when I was young, year 6/7 I think, I used to watch Battlestar Galatica. I remember liking it, but I've failed to see it since. Sky One have been showing a remake that shouldn't even carry its name, it's an alright show, but so different they could have named it anything and it wouldn't matter.

The interesting thing I've noticed though, and the reason I'm admitting my love of an old sci-fi show on a blog for everybody to read, was what I missed when I was younger. When your about 10 or 11, all it was ever about was humans blasting robots, or robots blasting humans. But there was something much better behind it because it kinda supports my whole religion argument from ages ago. Firstly, I guess I should sum up the plot so you get what the hell I'm talkin' about. Here we go, Battlestar Galatica in a nutshell...

There are twelve planets at war with evil robots. A great set up for someome who loves corny TV. Anyway, they are gonna make peace with the evil robots, obviously a stupid thing to do. They screw up. The twelve planets are destroyed. One surviving ship (the Battlestar Galatica) no less, flees, leading a fleet of crappy ships into space. They have nowhere to go, or so it seems. But the old religion of the 12 planets says that they came from an older planet, and 13 tribes left. The 13th tribe arrived on 'a shining planet known as Earth'. They head off for Earth, a vague hope left over from religion, being chased by the evil cylon robots, hell bent on their destruction for no apparant reason.

It is pretty much as corny as it sounds, which means it rocks! But the thing I loved was the whole "We're screwed!" "What about Earth?" "YAY!" The whole fact that religion gave them hope when they had none. It was my point all along. Sure, they could have roamed space without a hope in the world. Maybe they'll never find Earth, we'll never know because they axed it after one season! But as long as they believe they will, they have hope and the will to continue onwards. And that is why we have religion! Just some people (most people) have forgotten it, hence all the discrimination, war and such. But if religion, true religion, can give us hope, then shouldn't we take it. Maybe it's not true, but it's worth the risk!

Maybe they'll find Earth yet...

I have a feeling they'll be disappointed.