Halls Take 2

2nd year of uni is a go! So that means that 2nd year of halls is a go. 

You'd think that since this is my 2nd year in halls I'd be used to all the crap that goes on and all the different people coming and going. But I'm not, I'm still as awkward and odd as I was last year. 

As with everything, these halls have good and bad points.

The Good

1. A huge common room with a TV, pool table and ping pong table.
2. My room is at the end of the corridor where no one can bother me :)
3. It's far closer to Uni than Robbins was

The Bad

1. Everyone, and I mean everyone is terribly naive.
2. We're still in the stage where everyone's being nice to everyone else
3. The rent is aspensive!!
4. I'm on a floor filled with girls :(
5. There are already 2 separate groups forming and I am a part of neither!
6. Ajm isn't here with me :(

Gotta take the good with the bad I guess. 

Who Knows The Most About The Guest Post(er)

Since I somewhat erratically made it to 50 posts, I fell into the old trap of finding someone else to write it for me. In this case, the big bro. I think he delves into some tips about back packing - which can also be useful for students too, especially considering that students are almost the same as back packers. :D  Anyway. He wrote this for me aggggges ago, so I'm going to assume that some of the details he's put in here are going to be very different to what they should be. You don't need to know how they've changed, just accept that they have :D

Well my blog is all but abandoned, decomposing at the bottom of the literary sea bed. I guess I've changed the world enough with my spectacular insights and gave it perhaps its greatest gift...This blog 

Rachel guest posted for me and I have been asked to return the favour, I suppose I can come out of retirement for one more round.

What to talk about, mmm....

I know! the global financial crisis is great detail... gotcha!

I'm Rachels big brother, am backpacking in Australia with my girlfriend Kylie, learning, experiencing and doing!

So how about a few tips into backpacking? to be fair most of these can be applied to you student folk as well.

- Buy own brand. 90% of supermarkets own brand stuff is actually made by the big brand companies, because they buy and sell in huge quantites they can sell at reduced costs.

- Use self serve tills. Lets face it most of your diet consists of Macca's, KFC and the like but every so often your body will crave fruit and vegtables (it's true) but that shit is exspensive. So what you do is choose the items you want and go through a self serve where you have to weigh things yourself, wait till the helper lady ain't looking and bang everything under carrots. 

- Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If someone hands you a half used jar of peanut butter you damn well better take it and don't be shy if there is a free food shelf too. Early bird gets the worm. (Ahh, metaphors) Connected to this is the reduced section at the markets.

- Make friends, chat to that hippy looking dude, they usually have better stories. Don't be overly friendly though you might end up in a cult who worship the almighty Banana. It's a fine line but tread it anyway.

- Money ain't the end all and be all. Splash out once in a while. Take your girlfriend to the Ripleys Believe It or Not Odditorium even though it freaked the be'jesus out you.

- Do something every once in a while that takes you out of your comfort zone. "Me?, look after 10+ horses for 3 months. They'll be dead in 3 days ya eejit" but you know what they didn't.

There you have it, a guest post. Not too painful was it?

Who knows I might write book someday with all this material in it, it probably wont be as popular as 50 Shades of Grey but to be fair there will be no anal training in my book.

See ya!

2 in a row (Stealing posts)

So I was having a nose at Hazel's blog over at Pablo's Angel. I recently added her because I saw her on the list of people I need to send postcards to. I added her because I noticed she was from Coleraine :D Anyway, she had a post about the 100 books you need to read before you die, aaaaand, I stole it. So, I'm gonna do the same. Cross out which ones I've read and hopefully get around to read all the ones I haven't yet.


1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie 


I've got 60 to go, wish me luck!

Ruh Roh :(

Sincere apologies to all of my avid followers (read no one). It's been just over a month since I've posted anything on here. I guess it's the one area that's been neglected while I'm at uni.

Just on the off chance that any of you are interested in what's been happening in the past month, I'll give you a real quick run down.

1. Finished and passed placement at uni. This means I pretty much passed first year.
2. Wrote and handed in all my essays and got my results back. Have a couple of resits to do.
3. Officially moved out of my halls and into Alex's
4. Moved out of Alex's halls and into his aunt and uncle's house.
5. Went on a seriously irritating job hunt.
6. Got treated to a VIP day at Waddington Air Show.
7. Continued job hunt. 
8. Found no job. 

So, there you have it. Nothing worth going into detail about. The one thing I will like to talk about is the Great Postcard Campaign! It's finally my turn to send out postcards to everyone. J.Day over at The Ramblings of Charlie Brown sent me the list out and I have around 13 postcards to find and send out. If anyone on the postcard list is a follower of my blog, I'll let you know now, I'm trying to find the perfect postcards for everyone. If this takes me a little while longer than I hoped, I am sorry. I will hopefully have them all sent to you so they get delivered before the end of the month. :) I'm super excited about it and I hope you like your cards!

Pet peeves

I have pet peeves, just like everyone else, although mine are vast and unexpected.

I've been staying with someone else for the past few days and they seem to be able to every last one of my pet peeves. The main one is people who eat loudly. Why on god green earth do you find it impossible to not eat like a horse with a blocked nose? It's not hard, the majority of people I know are able to do it, why can't you?

The second of these is people who make unnecessary noises. For example, making strange noises when you yawn, grunting while you breathe, sighing pleasantly when you've had drink and constantly, constantly always 'humphing' when you breathe. STOP IT!! Stop it now!

I also hate people who point out the obvious. I can see that the sign says ladies toilets. You don't have to read it to me. I hav 20/20 vision, I can see it quite well thank you very much. You don't need to tell me every little story about your life or every little side detail that you know about why ever we happen to be watching. If I ask then tell me.

And for the love of god, never, ever try to physically push me towards something. Like getting a picture taken. If I want it taken, I'll get it taken. I'm quite capable of doing things by myself which also means that if I want a drink, I'll get off my arse and go get one. Stop offering me things ten times after I've said no once. An stop! trying to point out that all your offering goes to waste. Don't say things like 'I don't know why I bother!' I know why you bother, you're a busybody and can't leave people alone for ten minutes. Don't tell me I need to go to bed, I know when I want to, so I'll go then. Don't refer to me as 'someone like me' I am not like you, I am me, leave me to it.

Just leave me in my little world and get on with your own. JESUS!!!