procrastination

Unbelievable. The past few months have been spent doing exactly the same things: amending things to do lists so they incorporate the things I haven't done as well as other mounting tasks.

I am struggling with the work at present. Big time. Especially because I think laziness accounts for the lack of motivation rather than the typical "2nd year slump". Ambition has gone out of the window, only to be replaced with dreams of doing absolutely nothing. It's awful.

Any suggestions for overcoming this would be greatly appreciated. Maybe this should begin with not checking blogs repeatedly, playing crappy "copter" games on the internet, msn-ing all sodding day, staring at walls... the usual things. Oh dear, I don't even have anything better to do than work. If I had a cool interest (accents aside - am still working on Clydeside) then the procrastination would be more excusable. I don't even search productively for new interesting bands or read the newspaper anymore. I just click "refresh" on the inbox.

Is this normal? I see people who seem to be working all day everyday, and am amazed at how they do it. Don't they get bored? Or headachey from staring at a computer screen? How can one find interest in a PhD?!

Moon. x

Acknowledgements

Professor Thomas Willis, for his offerings of ferry times when we were at our lowest ebbs at Waterloo.

Nice men at Heathrow (termonals 1-3) tube who issued us travelcards.

Nice man and woman (intially thought they'd be moody) at Southern Trains (Victoria) who gave us train tickets.

Nice men (x4) also at Victoria who gave us return tickets on the Gatwick Express.

Guard at Euston who let us through without a ticket.

Nice (simple) ferry man at Portsmouth. Nice ferry lady at Portsmouth.

Virgin trains.

Sympathetic woman in restaurant in Le Havre who attempted to communicate with me despite my not speaking French. How I expected her to tell me what kind of poisson it was (didn't want Akira's allergies to blow him up) when I could barely order a salad, I don't know. Then couldn't remember how to ask for the bill. Appalling! Did manage to discuss the veggie items, and got her to show us the said uncooked fish, though, so can't have been that bad (er...). Said, "oui" a lot. Mind you, one woman in a shop said nothing but "bonjour" throughout an entire interaction. Maybe after all I'm impressively eloquent!

Oh yeah, nice man at Heathrow who gave us a motivational speech that went a-little-something like this (huh): "Don't give up, guys. You can never lose faith. Faith and 'ope. If you lost faith and 'ope, what else is there? Well, charity, I s'pose." Funny, funny guy. He was, however, not charitable enough to let us on his airline.

Akira - you rock. And your folks. Sorry I slept in and didn't see them. Really sorry.

Mum - supportive texts throughout, even if they did say things like "sod the bloody challenge. Go to London for a nice weekend. Fallen out with Akira yet?" in response to my texts informing her that I was in Waterloo station. Maybe mum needs the London map more than I.

Boos go to:

Gobby bint on the nightbus who retalliated in a most uncivilised manner to the nice bus driver. I was delighted when the bus didn't stop where she was hoping to go.

All workers of airlines, everywhere.

The aforementioned Southern buggerface of a taxi driver in Portsmouth.

Eurostar.

Heathrow's Costa worker for his surly behaviour. Expensive, too.

Taxi drivers in the Edgeware region circa 3am on Sunday morning. Where the buggery were you?



PS Still got the shakes. Still freezing. Let's see if this is an insurmountable task even for the Bagpuss hottle bottle.

"brrr"

I feel I should blog about the weekend's activities, although I predict rambling.

Akira and I went on a University RAG-typical (organised by Leeds University Union's RAG team) "Jailbreak" adventure. Our task: get as far away from Leeds as possible in a 36 hour period without spending any money. Easy, we thought. The RAG girls (hehe) encouraged us to pack warm and cool clothes as we wouldn't know where we'd end up. "You'll definitely get out of the country", they encourgaed.

So, after a day of work, we set off on Thurs pm, excited and optomistic. We had managed to secure some free Virgin train tickets (thanks, Ricky B. This is that publicity that I promised you) before leaving. The plan at this point was to get to Heathrow and beg for a flight anywhere. The guards let us on the tube and we got to Heathrow. So far, so good. Whilst trekking on the travelators we were filming our experiences, with spirits still high.

From hereon the story saddens. Heathrow was closed for the evening. Whatever happened to international flights throughout the night? OK I don't travel at all and I know nothing about the running of airports, but I don't think that was a radical assumption, was it? Post explore of every terminal and about 30 mins shuteye (note NOT sleep) on a metal bench we were rejected despite being truly smiley and utterly polite by countless ironed-haired, sunbed-tanned immaculately painted airline girls, who refused to acknlowledge that they didn't have the authority to give us free flights. Instead of them directing us to a supervisor when requested, they cooed, "no" repeatedly. After about 5 hours of this we went to Gatwick. (Thanks to nice men at Underground for our Travelcards and Southern Rail and Gatwick Express companies for free train tickets. You are lovely!) Gatwick was horrid. Hate the word, but was chavvy. Monorail-esque transport between terminals was unnerving. At least we got to see some planes, though.

So, no luck at Gatwick. Thought we were confident in our knowledge of London and attempting to walk the short distance from Victoria to Waterloo. It took us an hour. Really must admit that I only know a tiny area of London, at some point. I request a tube map and streetmap for birthday, please. Eurostar were fuckers at Waterloo. (It apparently costs over £200 anyway - unbelievable!) Akira and I were feeling exhausted by this point, and spirits were now officially low. Boo. Our final plan was to get to Portsmouth and try for a ferry to Le Havre. So we did. Hurrah! And we got a little sleep, too.

Had a day in France, which was nice, but 3 things let me down.
1 - Le Havre is pretty boring.
2 - I can't speak French anymore.
3 - There were crabs and lobsters at le marche. ALIVE! In case you didn't know, I had quite a phobia of these whereby I turn pathetic and get shaky and sick when I see them. In fact I can't see them. They have prevented me from going to beaches before. Akira was patient and tried to get me to overcome this, which was not successful.

Somewhere in between the good and bad aspects to the trip lay (and lay they did, the beasts) Ak's gaseous emissions. If we ever go away again, please stay away from the onion saucisson. Seriously. Merci.

After this we ferried back. Time for a positive note. 3 good things about the trip:
1 - The Napolean Dynamite like guy on the ferry. His hair was unreal.
2 - Being beyond tiredness (i.e. waffy and hyper) and going on deck when the sea was pretty rough. No matter what excuses Ak comes up with, I won the game of see-how-long-you-can-stare-at-the-spray-for-without-dying.
3 - The beyond-tiredness inducing properties of not giving a damn that I had no make up on. That's quite a triumph for a high maintenance lady like myself.

Return route was a journey of hell. We were confident that we could get back to London from Portsmouth, however the taxi driver was adament we couldn't. It turned out that he was a lying bastard who wanted us to pay for him to take us to London (fuck off, Southern buggerface) however there were issues with trains. So, replacement bus journey to Petersfield or somewhere. Then train to Waterloo. It was here that I caught pneumonia. I have never been so cold in my life. Might have been due to sleep deprivation, granted, but it was horrid. Shout outs (from MC Moon) to Ak who was very sympathetic at this point and has not taken the piss as much as he could/should have done for the fact I was wearning 2 jumpers, 2 coats, 3 hats and whining and shaking like an utter loser. Then walked to Victoria (as it turned out it was quite a distance, after all), then night-bussed from there. Then no taxis to take us to Akira's house. Managed to get to bed circa 3.45am Sunday morning. All this for 7 hours ish en France. Phew!

Sponsorships accepted, natually.

Moon. xxx

genuine students

This post is a reflection upon a typical 1pm-ish trip to the Chiller in the Union, and all the typical student activity that accompanies it.

Students are hilarious. I am still one, and I'm pretty damn funny. But I hope to have passed the "typical student" phase of my life, which I shall describe shortly. However the mess in which I lived as an undergraduate, drug fuelled though it was, was masked by the fact my stupidly rich housemates would just throw away their crockery once used and buy new stuff if they could ever be arsed to leave their hash den. So, the typicality of the University of Durham with its bi-weekly formal dinners (you HAVE to wear gowns), pretentiousness and historic beauty is not quite on a par with that of the University of Leeds. Leeds is more down to earth, and I like it that way. It's honest. (However, see point #2 below.)

#1
So, yesterday, upon walking into the Union I seemed to be caught in the middle of an exceptionally loud conversation. There's no need to display your social confidence by standing at opposite ends of the Union for a chat, now. A girl (if at Durham she'd be an ethno-rah) was trying to convince Mr. Bohemia 2006 to go to a night at the Fav called Global Chaos. "It will be totally wicked" she was saying, to which the braided-bearded man responded "yeah, I'll, like, totally be there". He won't. And when did Leeds to into California? Anyway, active typical students seem to spend their time putting 2 lefty sounding words together and creating nights at the Fav. Better than sitting in a hash den, which is what they do on nights off.

#2
After this encounter I paid for my goods and waited for my friends to do the same. At which point I was stood uncomfortably close to a group of girls (Psychologists, as it happens) who were the epitome of OTT. I presume they had given up sugary goods for Lent or something, likely because it gives them something to moan about in an OTT way. One particlarly fashion-conscious lass was opening a Flump, to which the other replied, (and I cannot emphasise the volume enough) "OhmiGod you sooooo can't eat that in front of me..." which sparked off a conversation lacking in content or interest. Much like a Flump. The honesty of Leeds can be overshadowed when you rarely leave campus.

Students years are such an important time of life, socially, that conformity studies should be done in Universities rather than on the Forces. Honestly, the shit these kids come out with!

I am aware of the irony with this blog entry, by the way.

The simple life

Feelings need to be shared regarding my experiences of the weekend. Every other week (ish) I nip home to the Shire and visit my parents, something I thank Leeds-living for (was a tad more difficult from the North-East). Along with such visits comes counless home comforts, including being welcomed by the cats (Dave, I do miss you); having Dad cook me a huge breakfast on Sundays; watching crap Saturday night TV (as if I actually tuned in to the Eurovision British entry vote, the celebrity ice-dancing final AND "Just the Two of Us" - tell no-one!); not to mention the much-loved satellite delay when speaking to my parents. Everything just slows down on these weekends.

Well, at this particular weekend of pampering and relaxation I decided to treat myself to an afternoon in the salon, and get a new "do". Nice. However this is a rare occurrence (despite the 6-monthly dramatic changes of hair colour - they're usually a home effort). I tend to amaze hairdressers at the awful condition of my wig, and feel generally like a lazy slob for not tanning myself to shades of tangerine, immaculately grooming myself or shaping nails. I was handed 7 (yes 7) copies of Hello magazine which, after perusing the front cover, I simply could not open. I know it's trash. And that's OK on occasion, but this was too much. I don't give a fuck about Chantelle. Somehow nestled in between was a Times supplement so I gratefully busied myself with that. Anyway, I was seen by 5 different girls and one young man over the course of my 3 hour treatment, and every single one of them asked, "you going out tonight?". Perhaps a fair question. Perhaps it's the replacement to typical hairdressing holiday enquiries (these visits are now so few and far between that I'm not really up with the lingo). So, in addition to feeling like a general beast compared to these super trendy sticks flitting about me, I also now feel totally past it - for at least 2 reasons. 1) I rarely "go out" anymore. What's the need when there's ice dancing on telly? And 2), (let's set the scene) I was in Lincoln. Lincoln. Once again, Lincoln. I know it has a University now, but it hasn't changed that much since my leaving it. It's as shit as ever. Where oh where do these dolled up beauties go? One chatted about her knowledge of Leeds, and how she was planning an big night out there soon so she could check out the new Oceana club. So, these girls spend £70 billion a year on tarting themselves up then go out on the Brayford in Lincoln then treat themselves to a night at Rock City (Nottingham, for you non-locals) or Oceana every now and then. I can't think of anything worse.

In conclusion, after an unnecessarily long rant, it seems that despite being made to feel hideous and old (had to buy anti-wrinkle stuff for eyes yesterday), I am generally content with not battling to go out to Bar Med every Saturday night. Although maybe I should keep options open - perhaps I could find my own fashion designer studying at Lincoln College of Beauty... Fingers crossed.

Moon (AKA the snob). xxx