Scrubs

There should be more TV programmes like Scrubs... it's got that whole wicked combination of being hysterically funny, off-the- wall crazy and poignant at the same time. I always feel a little low at the end of the term, but watching tonight's episode put it all in perspective for me - the quote 'nothing worth having in this world comes easy' is one that I have heard before, but it really struck me this time, and made me realise that it's completely true. Relationships, acheivements and all that jazz definitely don't come easy, and you're only going to get there with a lot of work and a bit of bravery, too.

It's very easy to give up striving to be the best person you think you can be, and just act like everybody else, drink away your problems and take mind-altering drugs that make you stop caring. It's incredibly tempting to escape reality, but you can't do it forever. Soon enough it's going to trip you up, and that fall is going to hurt.

I generally hate new year's resolutions as a concept, but I do believe in self-improvement, and I do know that I've gotten a little side-tracked the last few months. So it is time to change that, and focus on what is good and get away from what is bad for me.

5 songs to make it all okay again

Just like a cup of tea often seem the answer to everything, music has the ability to heal the soul. I've come across 5 songs in the past few weeks that I've noticed have been able to uplift or comfort me whenever I have felt down. So, if you need a little perspective, I recommend you check these tracks out:

1) Let Go - Frou Frou. As featured in the stunning cult film Garden State, it’s an incredible tune with soaring melodies, guaranteed to lift your spirits!

2) Move On Now – Hardfi. It’s not always easy being told to move on, particularly, when you don’t want to. However, this track soothes and comforts you and makes moving on seem almost appealing, and definitely the right thing to do. Perfect if you’re in the middle of a break-up.

3) You Only Get What You Give – The New Radicals. They may have only released one album, but there’s something about this song that just makes you smile.

4) Jamiroquai – Canned Heat. Sheer brilliance. Just makes you want to get up and dance. Guaranteed to jolt you out of any bad mood. I personally think they should make a musical base on their tunes. Oh, and JK is on my list.

5) Heartbeats – The Knife. A brilliant band in anycase, Heartbeats has to be possibly one of the best tunes ever.

Dissertations are a pile of....

I hate research. I don't want to read or write about Jurgen Habermas in his coffee house. Shouldn't he just drink coffee in a coffee house, not create an entire media theory surrounding it? And then people write books such as 'After Habermas' - as if we need more information about what people talk about whilst having coffee. Get over it. They have coffee, they slag off Tony Blair, they go home. There's a media theory for you.

Ok, ok. I know I should really be embracing this opportunity to expand my mind and write academic crap. But I can't do it. I have the attention span of an ant. Ok, maybe not an ant because they can actually follow a trail all day. I've watched them. I can read for about two minutes and then I start thinking about other things. Like getting a coffee. And the last thing I want to talk about when actually drinking my coffee is the state of the world today.

See, I'm already bored of writing this. How am I going to concentrate for long enough to write 10,000 words on The New Public Sphere? It's just not going to happen.

Pointless Assignments

Ok, so I admit that I'm using more time and energy complaining about this work than actually doing it, but seriously. What is the point in writing stupid placement reports and production analysis essays??? I would rather jump out a window, but it's raining. I also have to leave my cosy (heated - yay!) house in a minute to go to a completely pointless lecture where I never learn anything. I'm in a really tetchy moody today, no idea why. Just want to complain about EVERYTHING.

Hot water, and everything!

'Morning, Roberts.'
'Hi, our boiler is broken. Can we have it fixed, please?'
'Sure, no problem. FYI, we're gonna send some 12 year olds round to look at it, but they won't be qualified, so then we'll send someone else round a few days later. He'll say he doesn't have the parts. Then the landlord will decide he wants someone else to look at it. So he'll send three people round for a quote, after which we may eventually get something done. That ok?'

The day arrived. We were all relatively hungover as it had been Maggie's birthday the night before. Lucky Maria managed to get a shower in before they turned the water off (without telling us). The rest of us weren't so lucky. I emerged eventually to find six plumbers in our kitchen. that's right, six. Word had obviously got round the plumber's world about the saga of our boiler. I think they were sitting round, drinking tea and exchanging stories about what day they'd been round to look at it.

"Yeah, I was here Tuesday. Had right keruffle with it. It wasn't happy, I tell ya."
"Really? Well, I was here Thursday. Gave me a headache, it did."
They seemed to be having a brilliant time at their little convention. Ha. Just fit the boiler, please.

And then, miraculously, it was done. The radiators were hot to the touch. The kitchen tap could be used to run hot water for the washing up. Bliss. We sat in front of our telly, without three layers on for the first time in weeks, marvelling at this new luxury of heating.

'Shit!' Martin jumped up from the couch. "Something dripped on me!"
We gazed upwards to see droplet forming on the lounge ceiling, directly below the bathroom.

Brrrilliant.

Thoughts on living the city life

I’ve been in London for the past two weeks. Work experience. Which has been fun – and the whole London thing is beginning to grow on me. At first I found it quite depressing, getting in when it’s dark, spending far too much time holed up on the tube and battling masses of people, all as intent in getting to their destination as you are.

However, I also love the lights, the action, the sense of urgency, which is both as addictive as it is exciting. That said, I could never live in the big smoke unless I was utterly in love with my job. And paid a lot to do it.

Give me a London which lets me go for long walks in Richmond Park or along the Embankment every weekend, and gets me out and about the city during the week, taking photographs and speaking to interesting people. Give me a London that doesn’t consist solely of staying in a tiny flat on the weekends, recovering from the mother of all hangovers.

Not that I’m against partying, though. Not at all. In fact, give me a London where I can go to gigs at least every month, and visit the Ministry, Pasha, Koko or Fabric as often as possible. I want to visit exhibitions and shop to my heart’s content at Camden market.

Thing is, the poor man’s London can become nothing more than a blur of subways, hours at the office and a few small hours at home in front of the telly watching I’m a Celebrity – please kill me before I make more of an arse of myself, or subject you to truly awful TV.” Or something like that, anyway.

Our Boiler

Our boiler is broken. We could have told Roberts that this was going to happen. In fact, we DID tell them that it was going to happen. Oh, but I don't think I've yet mentioned our glorious letting agency, Roberts. Well. Let's see. We paid £700 in fees/deposit before we even moved into the property, and then found out that NOTHING worked. I'm going to post an article my housemates wrote about just how shit they actually are, because I can't be arsed to go into it myself.

Anyway. So, we wrote them a letter explaining that the boiler is dodgy, and then on Friday we discovered that our heating had packed up. Fab. Only on the coldest night of the year, mind you.

Saturday morning I ring them THREE times to find out just what they're going to do about it. Eventually 'Oh, did we not tell you. Yes, the plumbers will be round soon."
Thanks for letting us know, you silly cow.
Two 12-year olds arrive at our door an hour later. Apparently, they're the plumbers. Well, one of them is. The other one is work experience boy, and a gormless looking one at that. Seriously, neither of them looks old enough to drive the van that they've just parked (rather badly, might I add) outside our driveway.

Maggie walks into the kitchen just as they take the cover off the boiler. Both the boys stare at it. There's water dripping EVERYWHERE.
"Well, it's not 'appy" says the plumber.
Really? We could have told them that. They're not being paid £50 an hour to tell us that our boiler isn't happy.
"Well, what's wrong with it?" Maggie asks.
"I dunno. But it's not 'appy." Work experience boy nods gormlessly in agreement.
After a lengthy examiination, the plumber pronounces our boiler fucked.
"It's gonna need a real expensive repair job, or a new boiler" he says sagely.
Well done, Captain Obvious. That didn't occur to us, at all.

We ring Roberts again.
"Well, basically the plumber isn't qualified to fix your boiler," the woman says. No surprise there, love.
"So, you're gonna have to hold on till Monday for the electrician to come round."

I'm writing this wrapped in my flannel pj's, gown, wearing two pairs of socks and have a hot water bottle to boot. Thank goodness I'm going back to London tonight. It might be a rat-infested, smoggy, overcrowded, with a shit transport system that NEVER works, hellhole, but at least it's warm.

London Calling

Okay, so I officially now loathe and detest London transport. I am now going to be a full HOUR late because they build the fucking lines so far apart. Did I mention that I was carrying the heaviest suitcase in the world as well as my macbook? And there are just so many damn people who don’t move out the WAY so it takes twice as long to get anywhere. So, missed my first train back and then had to wait haf an hour for the next one, which was late. I spent most of the wait on the phone, however, which made it go quicker. Patience is not my strong point.

It’s the magazine launch tonight and I’m going to be late. Never mind, I’ll just swan in fashionably late. Oh, but wait. You’re forgetting this is me. I’ll probably trip on the stairs on my way in, spill my drink all over someone and then attempt to kiss someone I shouldn’t. Nevertheless, I’m very excited to see the mag, Apparently it’s the best one yet.

Last night was pretty amazing though, to put a positive spin on things. One of the good things about being in London is meeting the girls after work. I’ve really missed living with them. We started at a little bar called ‘Jewel’ Picadilly which was pretty swanky, although there were quite a few old men there who attempted to chat us up and lure us in with wine. It didn’t work – Hayley started talking about her ponies (that don’t exist) and that was kind of the end of the conversation. They were mortgage brokers, though. They even tried to sell us a mortgage. Charming,

We were starving by this point, and having learned my lesson (don’t drink if you haven’t eaten!) we made our way down Regent Street and found this amazing bar that had eastern food and had sheisha’s. Sold! Two bottles of wine and some overpriced but delicious bar snacks later, as well as a cherry-flavoured sheisha, we were suitably fed and watered, and stuck for what to do next. Conveniently, we happened to be next to the Ice bar, which, funnily enough, is made of ice.

We had to wear these thermal coats with fluffy hoods and posed with loads of ice statues (even the bar counter and the walls were made of ice!) It was COLD man. But really, really fun.

Hayley launched herself on some poor unsuspecting boy on the way home, but apart from that the rest of the night was generally uneventful.

I’ve managed to calm down slightly now, so the next mission is to find a friend to have a day of fun with me in London on Monday. Any suggestions?

Cabbages and Queens

Our house has bee turned into a recording studio. Martin is working on the track for his minor film project, which is all very well, just not when you have to listen to it about fifty times A DAY!

I'm awoken every morning by a strange buzzing noise. I soon come to realise that it's the obscenely loud baseline that he insists on playing at a ridulous volume because 'I can't hear it properly otherwise.'

Well, then invest in some bloody headphones, you idiot. We dont want to listen to the lyrics about ' two dodgy looking men' ad nauseum. It's all very nice and a well produced record, well done, but as wonderful and as talented as you are, we're a little sick of it by now.

My Day in London

'Hi, I'd like a travel card pleae.'
'Sure, that'll be £7 please."
"Thanks."
"FYI, none of the tubes are currently running today, so you'll have to get our replacement bus services."
"Right. So, why didn't you tell me this before I bought a ticket?"
He looked back at me, a deadpan expression pn his face.
"Ok. Anyway, so can I have a refund?"
"All our tickets are non refundable, I'm afraid."
"OK." I was running late. "Where do I get this bus, then?"
"It's the number 226 and it's about five miles up the road. Not far. Just keep walking. Oh, and there will be queues of people by the way, so you'll probably have to wait for the next bus. They come every hour."

I sighed. This was not a good start to the day.
Our auditions for two drag queens were not gonna be good. A few people dropped out, we drank a lot of tea, found our 'Walrus' and our 'Carpenter' and decided to attempt to get home.

Once we'd had an amazing meal at a little vegan chinese restaurant, we hotfooted it Victoria Coach Station. Slight problem - Martin didn't have an up to date ticket. He'd doctored it and changed the date, but had failed to change the reg number. Sure enough, Mr J. Obsworth saw that it was the wrong code, and had clocked us. We legged it from the coach station as they had his details on file. Much easier to blag a free lift on the train. Or so we thought.

We weren't particularly cosiderate on the train - at this point we'd reached delirum and played the soundtrack to the film ad nauseum on my macbook. Don't think the other passengers appreciated that, much. When the ticket lady came down to find us, we were far too delirious to care about the money. Penalty Fare, anyone? That'll be £66 pounds please. Thanks.

OCD

Our house has been struck down by a severe case of OCD, also known as 'Obsessive Casting Disorder.' All three of my housemates are in the middle of sorting out their minor film projects and have advertised on various websites to get struggling actors to work for them for free. You'd think that actors wouldn't want to work for students who pay them nothing and treat them like shit. But Maggie's idea apparently appealed to a lot of women, so much so that she had over 200 applicants apply for the role.

The repsonses came through the post every day. Masses of brown envelopes containing big black and white photographs and CV's, all with a covering letter:
"Dear Maggie, I'd love a chance to audition for the role of Kate/Anna/Becki. I really identified with the script."
"Dear Maggie, please consider me for the role, I've acted for the BBC/ITV/rarara" (If you're that good love, why are you still doing student films, eh?) Not that we're not grateful, or anything.

Anyway. I digress. So, every day Mags would go downstairs and find a big pile of envelopes at the bottom of the stairs. First she would scream, then she would cry.
Now the symptoms of OCD begin:
1) Taping up the letterbox
2) Repapering your walls with actor's CV's.
3) Chanting the names of actresses in your sleep
4) Having a nervous breakdown when you check your email -("what? MORE applications?There can't be MORE! I've had 500 already in the past hour!")

There's more, but I won't go on too much. She's finally decided who she wants to audtion and made a schedule. So that's the end of the disease for her, but Martin's just posted his advert and has already had about 40 responses in the past hour. This sickness is catching...

Reasons not to leave your MySpace Account open

My housemate left her MySpace account open the other day, so we had some fun meddling with her blogs!

Dixie

"Musseltof! I'm worried about Dixie I think my mum (her name's Marie) is trying to fatten her up so she can hold a big jewish party and feed her to the guests."

The guy at the gym

"So there's this guy at the gym. He's kinda cute and has got a 'fro. He likes to talk to me. I can't tell my housemates cos they'll take the piss. The other day he walked past me and accidently stroked my thigh, I liked it though. So much a bit of wee came out."

Don't leave your account open!

History Day!

I've just been informed by my father (Happy Birthday Dad!) that today I have to write about history, and how it has affected me. Well, bit of a silly question, really, because history affects us all, whether we like it or not.

I always loved history lessons at school. My teacher, Miss Rose, instilled a love of history in most of her pupils, through her enthusiastic story telling and wry sense of humour. We were always encouraged to ask 'what if?' and 'how come?' We learned about the Renaissance, both World Wars, Vietnam and the Cold War, all of which has proved incredibly useful for me today, doing a journalism degree.

However, I have discovered that whilst I may have a good general idea of world history, there is a huge amount of people at my University who have absolutely no idea about what went on in the world twenty years ago, let alone earlier in the century. I won't refer to my housemate of last year as an example, because I think she is a rather dramatic exception rather than the rule - for example, she thought that John Major was Margaret Thatcher's son. She does a politics unit as part of her degree. I rest my case.

However, last year I did a unit called 'Global Perspectives.' Basically, looking at world history and how it has affected the state of the world today. The amount of people who had no idea about the Middle East Crisis or the Cold War completely astounded me. It was like it was compeltely new information to them that the world had been at the brink of a nuclear war. What on earth were they taught at school?

I won't bang on about this too much, because I will sound too much like my dad. However, I am very grateful to both him and my high school history teacher for giving me a great historical education.

Monday Blues

Best way to start the week - NOT with a dissertation tutorial. The word 'rising panic' springs to mind. I was on the verge on bursting into tears and running away. Why did I decide to do a degree anyway? In fact, it's not the degree that's the problem, it's all the other things that I committ to doing - editing footage from our Leggit: Mission Impossible trip, for example. That was this weekend gone, when I could have actually got other things done. I know in the grand scheme of things that it's gonna be awesome and it's worth every tedious minute, but still.

I've already eaten half a packet of choc chip cookies. I'm meant to be on diet. But stress makes me want sugar.
Feeling slightly calmer now so am going to continue with my lovely research and hope that something will come of it.

Fish Seeks Bike

I went to a night out in Bournemouth last night called 'Fish Seeks Bicycle.' It's hard to explain, but basically it's one of those very VERY alternative nights where they have random bands playing random music. For example, one of the bands was playing Irish jigs. The lead singer got naked. Bit of a shock, but once you've been to enough of these nights, nothing really shocks you anymore.

There's always a fancy dress code, and this time it was 'showdown.' Basically, dress as weirdly and wonderfully as you can, and truy outdo everyone else with your outfit. There were swashbuckling pirates, a man dressed as a carrot and a LOT of big blue afro's. I decided to do the Vogue thing and wear a black vintage drss with leggings and pull out all the stops on the dramatic black makeup and bedhead hair.

Naturally, there was the usual loved-up atmosphere that comes with those nights. Despite atrocious queues for the bar, (I blagged my way to the front every time!) nobody seemed annoyed and there was none of the aggression that usually comes with a Saturday night out in Bournemouth. No men grabbing my arse, no one spilling drinks on me, and no fights.

The tunes got better and better as the night went on. Bring on more nights like this one, and less nights where you queue for hours for a taxi, admist people being sick in the street. Fish Seeks.... everytime!

My Blog!

My dad has been telling me for some time now that I, as a trainee journalist (hate that title, by the way) should really have a blog. Thing is, I'm ridiculously busy all of the time because I tend to try and do too many things at once. Therefore I end up spending all of my time running around and never have a spare minute to do anything else. However, decided that enough is enough and I will create a blog whether I like it or not. There, Dad, Happy? 


In all seriousness though, I think writing is a really important and relatively self-indulgent thing to do, and as I don't spend enough time on myself, maybe blogging is a roundabout way of doing it. So - a bit about me. I like this bit, talking about myself. I'm a third year journalism student/receptionist at a sports and arts centre/editor for Nerve* Magazine (www.nervemedia.net - download the latest version NOW)/ editor/film crew for Nerve* TV/sales assistant for Student's Union (occassionally, might I add) and I think that's all.


As you can probably tell, I don't have time for a boyfriend and all the complications that come with that, although I do spend a fair amount of time obsessing about why a particular guy doesn't want to be with me, which is ridiculous really because I don't particularly want to be with him... or maybe I do... or not. Anyway. I'm obsessing. Again. I love to write, take photos of my friends, design magazine pages, and am trying to teach myself graphic deisgn which isn't going very well so far. I enjoy going out, but only with people who don't bore me (that happens easily) and am most happy at alternative music places like Consortium, 176 and Sound Circus. 


Hmmm... what else... I would say my philosophies in life are pretty general and I try to follow them most of the time: friends and family come first, don't have regrets, don't hold grudges, take life one day at a time, be open-minded but also hold fast to your morals, and don't judge. There. That was fun.