You Make Me Go, Lalala.

Life has gone absolutely topsy turvy since this project started. I know I was wishing revision and exams were over, but if I knew that I would be this pushed for time to do so much, I would have certainly savoured the moment - having only one thing to do the entire day is nowt but a dream now.

I am also regretting planning my whole summer back to back. Suddenly having constructionarium followed by Tanzania followed by work placement followed by uni again seems more stupidity than time efficiency. Yes, I know, I will have done SO much, but then I will also be pretty shattered. So much effort deserves at LEAST two weeks of staying home and doing nothing C=

I bought a whole load of crap for Tanzania on Monday...managed to get quite a lot done! Including a pretty hefty (and expensive) first aid kit with what I hope is just about everything included! I just need to get a sleeping mat, some robust sandals, and a mosquito net now. Kit to be bought is not covered in the 1500 squid budget btw, this is all stuff out my own pocket that shall never be gotten back...but at least I can use the kit again I suppose. Money collection is still going slow, but just recently we managed to squeeze some cash out of the union, hooray!

I'm also having trouble picking what to do next year for my electives, as well as picking my final year project. I hate having to choose these things now! I've had like 6 weeks to think about it and I still haven't come to a conclusion. I've spent every spare moment today going to chat to a lecturer about what to do with my life. The more I talk to them the more I don't know. But what is annoying is that I'm starting to get swayed about what to do by their personalities? This happens to me alot; you tend to judge something by the person who's doing it. In a way it's a bit silly to think like that and I try not to, but in some cases you really can't help it. I wouldn't want the things I pursue to turn me into the kind of person I don't want to be (viz. why I stopped dancing for a while).

The only activity I have ever done that had led me meet genuinely decent people is getting involved in EWB. To be fair you can't be a total tosser and stick at that sort of thing. I mean sure, everyone is human, they have egos, they have flaws, but all these things don't get inflated from the word go, simply because there are more pressing matters at hand. Other societies just felt so backward in comparison. Too much petty social drama for my liking. As if I didn't have enough of that already :p

Time Please?

I get really aggravated when people put me under the pretence that they will spare time for me, and then don't.

I have this annoying tendency to drop everything and be there at a moment's notice for the little things, just because I think that whoever has asked me would appreciate me being there. Things like presents and birthdays and christmases mean absolutely nothing if you can't even make simple time for your friends.

I'm not the kind of person with the world of time on my hands. My best friend who has to make appointments with me will attest to that. I'm just the kind of person that makes time; albeit only a small portion of time for everyone. I actually feel really bad when I'm so hard up for time or energy that I have to say no. And I feel worse having to cancel - I don't do it unless that I am 100% certain it can be postponed without missing out on too much.

Why make plans or promises without having the balls to commit to them? I don't know. If you say you're going to do something, then do it. If you need something finished then get your head in gear and finish it. If uni has taught me ANYTHING, it's that floundering and uncertainty gets you nowhere. Nothing will happen on a 'maybe'. It really is that simple.

I fear that this will be another hospitable trait of mine that will soon be extinct; along with the superhuman tolerance I used to have that breathed its last late last year. (The conclusion I came to a few months after that post was that if I think someone is a wasteman to begin with, the chances are they definitely are, c.f. jjb, tb, fz, mb)

The Post-Exam Rant.

What a day.

What an expensive day.
It's ridiculous the amount of things I've had to put off until the exams were over. Today I had to go into work to get my documents photocopied, relieved the MASSIVE itch I've had to go shopping during exam time (and possibly overdid it- no thanks to Bel who made me jealous of the things she bought/lusted after during exams! :p), had a telephone interview while I was having lunch for a graduate recruitment scheme, and paid someone to infect me with Yellow Fever and Meningitis A&B. More jabs are yet to come closer to the time. More money to be spent. Sigh.

Tomorrow I get briefed for my third year project. Noooo :(

And I have to sort out what the hell I'm going to do for my fourth year project, choosing fourth year electives, applying for bursaries for Tanzania (cough up if you haven't already!), the fundraiser night (which you MUST come to), EWB problems to resolve, buy all my gear, other pending applications...the headaches never stop!

Even still, it was nice to go out on my own, me and my thoughts, absent-mindedly zig-zagging past other busy londoners with nothing to be late for. As opposed to me, in my room, my thoughts, and the fixed earth method/ nonlinear systems/ sediment transport/ wave evolution/ cost-benefit analysis buzzing in my head. It was getting real crowded in there.

It was also getting pretty lonely. It was just me and the voice in my head, telling me I'd be fine, telling me when to sleep, telling me to calm down. Just because there wasn't anyone else around to reassure me. Lol, I don't know if you get what I mean, I wasn't literally hearing voices (honest!), but sometimes the only person who can convince you to do anything is yourself. I was really relieved to finally see people again, and I was getting high on just having conversation and laughter, I'm not joking! I had an awesome time hanging out with people when exams were over. And the voice in my head has shut up now, so I know things are back to normal.

So, lot's to do. But looking forward to the weekend C;

Me-ow.

It is a small, sad truth that people often only befriend you for a specific reason. Nobody wants to make new friends for no reason any more. Everyone already has enough real friends to last them, thanks.

What I find extremely aggravating is when boys (yes boys, not men) are only very sweet in the off chance that their sickly niceties will get girls to think of them in a different light. The sincere kind perhaps, that would never break her heart? Some are aware of it, while others are not, but get a cute girl in the room and they're all suddenly a gentleman.

The biggest perpetrators of all are the ones who disappear after they have failed to make their conquest. The ones who sustain a feigned "friendship" until they realise that its a total waste of time (because she's never gonna like you, mate) and just switch on one. Suddenly its playground tactics again, you don't wanna play my game? Well too bad, I got a new best friend. Read: pretty thing to lust after.

So much for being sincere.
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Ooh, is this what exam stress does to me? Make me spiteful? wow, spiteful and bitchy. That's not happened in a while.

Perhaps I should have talked about comic books instead.

Weepy

What a horrible week!

[Warning: Rant immenent]

It starts off with Engineering Economics, the most mundane lecture known to man, and ends with me sat at home, in the dark like a vampire, because my left eye is being a wuss right now.

Even without having lectures killing us softly, this week has been pretty darn terrible. I spent the whole on Monday afternoon trying to finish a group coursework project, only to find out at the end of the afternoon that we had done it all wrong and spent all that time have effectively done nothing. Tuesdays are always horrible, Coastal coursework always due in like the day after they've been assigned - argh. Wednesday: completely brutal 3-hour design project. Brief at 9, hand in at 12. If it wasn't bad enough, we were given almost undecipherable data to work with! Got a christmas coursework back and received a miserable grade. Spent the rest of that afternoon finishing Coastal. Got home at 9:30pm. Thursday: 9-6 is never a fun thing. Realised I had done shit all on a project thats due in a couple of weeks, and on top of that getting pressure from one of group members because we haven't gotten very far on the project we were trying to do on Monday. Got another group coursework back and received another miserable grade. I also had to sell Without Borders Band Night tickets somehow on top of all this. Friday: had a good night's rest but somehow managed to poke my eye out with my finger, and happened to have kept my fingernails long this week, coveniently creating a scratch in my eye that has caused it to swell and is causing me much irritation and in effect a whole day of possible work lost!

I've been at home since.

Saturday: And instead of going to uni at 9 this morning to finish group project until 5, from which I had to head over to the union to help with Without Borders Band Night to make sure it was a really big success so I can go to Tanzania, I am stuck at home, in the dark, trying to make sense of how to do the next part of my project, while my other two team mates struggle on without me in Central Library.

Okaaaay. Inane rant about life over.
More intelligible things begin HERE.

I really hope my eye gets better today :( Tomorrow I was supposed to come into uni so I can pour water on the cement tank EWB made last week to help it cure. I also have IMAX tickets to see Watchmen tomorrow with the best seats ever :(

Oh Watchmen. I was glad I saw it early. And yet, I left somewhat disappointed. A parallel storyline was ripped from the movie plot, the storyline that delivered the very morals of the main plot itself. It was the storyline that connected the superhero world to average comic book reader, and it made it ever so clear that the world we live in now is not far off from the catastrophe that threatens the world of Watchmen. It may not be the very same, but as fantastical and improbable as it seems, this world is plagued with all too familiar problems. It may have been a ridiculous ending, but I relished in the thought of something so absurd to be the only means to uncover the reality of it all. "Artists use lies to tell the truth."

This movie conveys no such truth. There are only lies here made to entertain an audience for an hour or two, of superhuman characters with very human lives. I imagine that audiences without a sci-fi compatible imagination will find this movie ridiculous, possibly insulting to the intellect. The more subtle ideas portrayed in the comic were very poorly portrayed by this adaptation, with very patronising music to boot. The trailers were deceiving; I expected something a lot more true to the darkness of the comic.

But still I would like to watch it again. I had to watch HP5 twice, because I couldnt appreciate it when I was always anticipating the next twist in the plot.

Ohhh where did this week go? It was only the other day I was raving it up at my friend's 21st dressed as a Pink Lady.


Work hard, play hard I suppose.

Gammon? Ha ha!

Ribby settled Duchess in an armchair before the fire, and went out and hurried to the village to look for the doctor.

She found him at the smithy.

He was occupied in putting rusty nails into a bottle of ink, which he had obtained at the post office.

"Gammon? ha! HA!" said he, with his head on one side.

Ribby explained that her guest had swallowed a patty-pan.

"Spinach? ha! HA!" said he, and accompanied her with alacrity.

-The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, Beatrix Potter 1905

Ribby the cat, Duchess the dog, and Dr Maggotty the crow

There is a guy who is chatting to me right now, that reminds me SO much of Dr Maggoty in the Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan by Beatrix Potter. Every single sentence he says is most dutifully followed by a "haha". It's even worse when people have nothing else to say but "lol"! Argh! (*real s/n not used to protect idenities lol)

dr maggotty* says:
hi aimi
dr maggotty says:
haha
dr maggotty says:
how was xmas and new year?

[insert generic response of mine here]

dr maggotty says:
well
dr maggotty says:
i went sightseeing and done lots of shopping
dr maggotty says:
haha
dr maggotty says:
cos the sale here is really sale

[more generic conversation later]

a i m i : l a d y says:
have u studied
dr maggotty says:
erm
dr maggotty says:
not really
dr maggotty says:
haha
dr maggotty says:
i'm procastinating
dr maggotty says:
haha
dr maggotty says:
but i've started a little
dr maggotty says:
hahaa
dr maggotty says:
what's with girls and diamonds ?
dr maggotty says:
haha

And to make things worse, when I was young I had that story on audio tape, so I have an imprint of how a crow would say the words "Gammon? Ha Ha!" imprinted in my memory.

Dr Maggotty, filling my msn with nonsense does not make up for your lack of conversation.

Haha, just something I just thought I'd share. Ha Ha!

Go Away.

Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.

Stop haunting me. You're just a stupid unworthy person who couldn't keep their word. How do you insist on following me, even though you've completely removed yourself from my life. Sometimes I wish you hadn't, just so I could scream at you.

It's All Over Really.

I simply fail to understand why you would spend the last of your freedom years cooped up in the library/ in the comp lab/ in your room poring laboriously over notes for 9 months straight and making sure that you are thoroughly miserable. And make everyone else miserable while they're watching you do this in the process. Is it worth it? Is it really worth it?

A lot of the graduates that came out of Imperial this week all seem to be very happy with their degree, but only because it's finally over. They all have this glint in their eye that says: "Damn right I'm getting my degree, I didn't just do a fuck load of work for nothing!"

I can't understand anybody who would do nothing else but study. And eat, and go home, and study. Oh yeah, sure, in two years time you'll have a piece of paper to tell you that you're an average Imperial genius. That's gonna make you happy. Let me know how that goes.

Uni years are supposed to be growing years. I'm pretty sure we don't flourish by festering in the dark. When you look back on these years, all you're going to have to remember it by are the long hard hours staring at tutorial sheets, revising, and perfecting your already perfect coursework. If this happens to be you, I am of the opinion that you would leave this place a very empty, hollow person.

But seriously, we will never have the excuse to be this crazy, this stupid, this adventurous EVER again in your entire life. After this, it's almost over.

Weh.

As you can see, I have been busy.

Every school holiday, back when I was younger, whenever I felt motivated to something, anything except work I would always put it off by directing my creative energies into Photoshop. Usually I would make a new layout on myspace, or make a cool picture for one of my friends and send it as a comment if I was feeling particularly nice, or cheeky depending what I made a picture of. I've neglected Myspace for quite a while now, left it for facebook actually, but there's nothing creative you can do on facebook besides writing notes (lame ass blogging) for your 100's of friends (most of which you might not even like THAT much let's be honest, but you happen to know them in real life so you can't deny they exist) to read and wave their judgemental sticks at. So, right now I like this little hidden corner of nowhere.

At least on myspace nobody knew who anybody else really was so any perceptions anyone had of each other, can't be based on anything real anyway. But then all the bitching amongst the kiddies did get very tiresome. You would be amazed how one little comment on someone's profile can cause so many problems.

I liked myspace because you could edit it to look however you wanted, you could blog if you wanted and only the people who might care about you would read it, you had all the myspace music on there, and you kept in touch with friends. Buuut I got tired of friends who I would never meet.

The song playing now, I uploaded it on Imeem.com, somehow way cooler than myspace. For one you can upload everything you might want on it, the servers don't run at 5mph, and interface doesn't bug the hell out of me. Myspace only recently expanded the limit for photos.. only for photos!! If you want to upload songs you have to pretend you're a band, even then 4 is the max, and it can't have some copyright on it. Then there's the creepy people. Not to mention the invasion of hackers recently that have sent floods of spam comments from my friend's accounts. And there's something in their terms and conditions that any photo uploaded onto myspace becomes property of myspace, there was even some clause saying that even if you deleted it, it would still belong to myspace, but I think they amended that now. What the hell =S Not too comfortable with the fact that a photo of my face belongs to Murdoch. Although with millions of users what's he gonna do with my photo =S

So actually, myspace kinda sucks.

This blog (with the help of imeem.com) will satisfy my internet junkie need for the mean time ^___^