Reflections

So the first year of university is well and truly over. It doesn't seem at all long ago that I started this year a month or so into my freshman year. Now it's gone already.
During the exams my mind had been hell-bent on getting the exams finished and getting home to Plymouth. But now that exams are done the parts of Cardiff I will miss are starting to come back to me after a month of being locked into a mundane revision routine. Mainly I will miss my friends and the city itself. But I can't wait to be reunited with Plymouth, its glorious coastline and countryside and my lovely friends.

The au-pair trip to Italy I mentioned a couple posts back? Well.. that's not happening any more. Che peccato! The only families left for the trip all wanted females students only. Sexism in force.
I am not a paedophile. I have had a CRB check for when I worked in a school as a cleaner. That is probably more than the girl who ends up replacing me will have, you sexist bastards.

Oh well. As is my style, there is an (albeit obscure) Plan B. Me and Lucy will probably go to Italy for a month staying with various friends of hers. She just happens to have friends dotted around Europe like that.

And I still want to get to Barcelona for a week. Afterall, seven years studying Spanish without having been to the country is rather ridiculous!

I had my last night out as a fresher in Cardiff tonight. Hit the pre-lash hard with Nick, Ben and Nick's lads. They are true lads. As I haven't drank at all over exam period, it was a rude awakening having them shouting 'See it off fresher!' at me. It probably contributed heavily to the drunk state I am in now. After the pre-drinks we headed to the Union for Boombox. It was a right laugh although I was pretty hammered. Then we head to town for a well earned Burger King. Nothing sobers you up like an XL Bacon Double Cheeseburger.

Then me, Nick and Ben headed back to the flat, played a bit of COD with the speakers up really loud as a bit of revenge for all the times pricks have kept us up. Then we played a bit of FIFA. I beat Ben 7-1 so he had to go around the building twice. A good ending to the year really.

I'm going to miss my friends and the new life I have founded for myself up here.

However, my parents are picking me up tomorrow so I simultaneously cannot wait to get home!

Bring on the summer.

A small update from behind an Italian history book

Revision is bogging me down. Fascism was not a good idea.

I popped my sushi cherry the other night. I enjoyed it very much. I haven't quite acquired the art of picking it up from the conveyor belt. One dish nearly ended up in a friend's lap as my clumsy butter-fingered club hands fumbled at it. However, I liked the simple pick-up-what-you-want style. It was quick and efficient, just what the modern man wants. Although eating chocolate cake with chopsticks was far from efficient. Or quick.

I'm back home in Plymouth at the moment. I corrected my Spanish tandem exchange partner's English essay today. It's interesting to see what parts of the English language foreign people find difficult. It probably isn't for you though.

I should be going hitch-hiking through Spain and Italy this summer with Lucy. I hope we don't get raped. I don't know if I had mentioned that plan before. I think I have.

Now here's a music video. At least if I talk about something that isn't my life, then you may not be bored. If my life's dull, the blog's dull. So problem=solved if I don't talk about the revision and exams that will be no doubt dominating my life for the next four weeks. But this blog was made to talk about my life. So I just won't talk. There's no way Italian history revision can be made into something fun for my readers. Unless I had some kind of kill-the-Mussolini game. That would just be rotten and obscene. Maybe I'll talk a little, about the little things, with little musical treats and such-like to make the tiny (and I mean tiny) gems of interest in my life over the next month of exams seem more rewarding.

So without further ado, here's the video. Darwin Deez - Radar Detector. Have a cheeky little dance to it. He's like a skinny Jesus.




Thanks for sticking with me through this boring patch.

Sam

One less plate in the circus act

I've finally vanquished that bastard of an essay, and therefore Psychology of Development and Learning, from my life for good. It weighs in 2,914 words and comprises of a substantial amount of waffle, but hey; Psychology isn't my forte. I'm a languages student!
This has now wiped a lot from my plate, meaning I can now concentrate on Tuesday's Italian oral exam, which I should have no problems with.
Then Wednesday I should be going out for Sushi and hitting the bars with friends. I've never had sushi before, so it should be interesting.
Thursday brings with it a much needed trip home to Plymouth until the following Wednesday due to the fact that lectures will be over. I should get to view the new house then too. It'll be nice to see the family and friends again. It has been quite a stressful week, and I will be grateful for this brief trip home before everything goes into mega busy revision/exam mode.

Once I'm back here in Cardiff, I imagine I'll be taking a bit of time out of blogging. Nobody wants to read about me revising and struggling through exams. I'll literally be coming back on the 5th May, voting Lib Dem on the 6th, then just hitting the books. If anything interesting pops up in my life, it'll be put up here no doubt. If not, it means I'm miserable and probably drowning under a weight of books and distractions.

I've got a formspring, ever the slave for trends. Ask me a question on there if you want. Nothing too philosophical, or dirty. That might keep me sane. I'm gonna have lots of free time due to having no lectures, so keep me busy in my revision breaks!

Sam

An update of sorts

I haven't been blogging much lately due to the fact that my life over the last few days has consisted of:

1) Wake up
2) Work
3) Buy food
4) Work
5) Eat Food
6) Work
7) Sleep
8) Rinse, Repeat.

And in between all these steps there's been a lot of procrastinating thrown in.

However, I have set myself a new goal. I have a 3,000 word essay to complete by May 4th. I have set myself the target of finishing it before next Thursday when I return home to Plymouth for my brother's birthday party. I will do it. This new target has given me some va-va-voom, some drive to complete the essay, tending to make me less vulnerable to distraction. It feels like an age since I've been out in Cardiff for a proper night out. Further incentive to finish this damn essay.

I feel like I've forgotten all my Spanish. Since my week in Italy, my Italian has improved and I am always speaking it in lessons. However we hardly get any opportunity to speak Spanish, except for in our conversation lessons but even in those classes you are in a room with about ten other people so with a group discussion between ten people in 50 minutes we get very little time each to make our voices heard. Luckily we are assigned a Spanish ERASMUS student with which to speak. I haven't met up with mine at all this semester due to my ridiculous amount of work making me lose track of time so I am going to have a day with her this Friday in the sun and hopefully have my Spanish speaking powers rejuvenated.

As there haven't been any real blog-worthy developments on the Cardiff end of the scale, I'll divulge into a little of my family life. My parents have been house hunting for a while now and have made an offer today which was accepted.

I'm yet to see it in person but my parents and brother assure me it's wonderful. Either way, from the pictures I've seen it looks like an improvement on our current house. Plus anything is better than my cell up here in Cardiff and my modest house I'll have here next year. So friends who know me in real life, you could (and most probably will) end up partying and sleeping with me (not in a gay way, unless you're a girl, but still not gay) in this house. It has quite a sizeable drive if I say so myself. Hopefully there's a permanent home in there for my drum kit. Not the drive, the house.

I can't wait to see it properly. I hope my brother hasn't shotgunned the best bedroom.

Now I bid thee farewell with a parting gift for those of you with spotify which is probably a very small minority, if anybody. It is my super-awesome summer playlist, packed with tunes for grilling slabs of beef on a griddle heated by pure fire in the great outdoors, for driving down long dusty country lanes, shades on, wind in your hair; songs for looking out at the infinity of the ocean, or at the stars sat by a fire and just feeling a general sense of contentment. Yeah you get the idea. Spotify is really useful for making playlists to easily show to others. I find it really gratifying bringing music into people's lives. So if you have spotify, give this a listen while getting ready for a lovely day in the sun.

My Super Awesome Summer 2010 Playlist


Saludos,

Sam

A slice of home

In honour of the recent string of sunny days we've been having, we had a barbecue today. We went to Bute Park, this lovely great park a stone's throw from our halls. It was me, Lucy, Darshni, Darshni's boyfriend Dan and a handful of their friends. We were sat there in a circle with our instant barbecue's and our burgers and buns. It served as both a precursor of what I have to look forward to this summer and also brought memories of last summer rushing back. We were all so independent back home in Plymouth last summer; with our cars, on the beach every other day and night. And tonight reminded me of those summers back home. Especially the next part.

When the sun had gone down and the flames on the barbecue had done the same, the coals slowly smouldering away, embers gently twinkling as the breeze caught them in the dark twilight air, we decided to fill the barbecues with some little twigs, working our way up to bigger sticks until we had built ourselves an ever-growing fire as we took trip after trip to get more sticks. Everyone had left the park by this point and a few members of our group had peeled off and gone home, leaving the eight of us there, in a circle, snuggled in blankets, my speakers blasting out music, providing a soundtrack to the conversation and crackling of firewood. It was absolute bliss.

I had pangs of nostalgia of those summer nights on the beach back home, this feeling an all too familiar scene to me. I sat there in my element, warming my hands on the fire, drinking cheap rum, a simple coastal town boy in his comfort zone, surrounded by big city-folk to whom this was a rarity. I felt miles away from everything; a safe and secure isolation from everyone outside of our paradise. For those few hours we were the only people in the world, sat around those comforting flames under a sky speckled with stars, a moment so perfect in its simplicity and intimacy. The kind of moment that brings friends closer. Moth's Wings by Passion Pit came on at one stage on the speakers while we were all laid there around the fire. It was the perfect song for a perfect night. Have a listen and imagine you're laying there. We're definitely going to do it again soon.



Of course, we then had to return back to the real world and burst our relaxing little bubble of carelessness; back to the lights of civilisation and the noises of the city. But now here I sit typing this in my humble, cosy little box room, where a night of slumber awaits me.

The only thing tonight was missing was the sand and sea, something which I will be able indulge myself in when I finally reach this well-earned and fast approaching summer. On the topic of summer, after discovering that I won't be going to Spain with Allin any more, I have discussed travel plans for the summer with Lucy. We might be going hitch-hiking around Spain and..... Italy! Her having lived in Spain before helps because she will be able to show me all the best places and secure us places to stay with friends in Spain and Italy. So, whatever happens, it should be a good summer. Provided I get through these exams.


Sam

O, Plymouth, I greet thee with open arms

I'm back in Plymouth for this Mother's day weekend. I received so many 'awww Mummy's boy' comments this week when I have told friends this.

I was asked by Angelo, one of my Italian teachers, in Italian this morning if I studied French. When I replied 'no', he seemed surprised and said how I speak Italian with a French accent. Best iron that crease out immediately.
I've got the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach. It's lovely.

Bit of a change in post themes today. I was on the train and randomly was struck by a wave of inspiration so thought I'd draft a blog post on my iPod blogger app. The result of that inspiration can be seen in my previous post. I wouldn't go so far as to call it poetry by any means. The structure is too irregular. I labelled it as a 'scribbling' which leads me to believe I have chosen quite an apt name for this blog.

When I was in a band, I used to write a lot of our songs and I would be hit by these waves of inspiration akin to that which I experiences today. It happens a lot less often now, and seeing as I have no band to vent my creativity into I thought I would seize the opportunity before the moment was gone and so I put it on here. Let me know what you think it's about, if you liked it or if you didn't.

Balls in the bath

I am in a total state of relaxation now. Due to the fact that I have been home in Plymouth since Friday, I decided to have a bath tonight; the first bath I have had in a long time.
Recently I finally completed my Sigur Rós collection by getting the only album of theirs I didn't have, 2002's oddly named '( )'.

 

So I thought in honour of finally having this album, I would bask in its ambient waves as the warm water lapped over me and caressed me to my very soul. And boy did it work.

I rediscovered many forgotten joys about baths, such as the scent of the bubble bath filling my nostrils, the sound of silence when you let your head underwater and putting a big lump of soapy suds on top of my head.

Along with these I was reunited with the old bathing qualm, the ball-dip. For males such as me who like their baths hot, the ball-dip is the most difficult and painful part of the bath-entering process; the part in which the testicular satchel is submerged into the water as the man sits down, the final temperature test and the part in which the man makes a lot of strange noises. The ball-dip is a perilous bridge, but a bridge that must be crossed in order for bath entry to be carried out successfully.

The bath was complimented perfectly with some Pina Colada scented bubble bath, making it possibly one of the most masculine episodes of my life so far.

Back in Caerdydd

So once again I bade farewell to home on Saturday, shaking off the cobwebs from my messy farewell party from the night before.
I spent the weekend with my parents in a hotel up here, showed them round and, most importantly, ate out at some lovely restaurants; an occurrence which will become pretty scarce in the months that are to follow.

Today I got stuck into my lessons again with surprising enthusiasm. After such a long Christmas break, it is nice to have a worthwhile outlet to put my mind at work.

I'm still plodding away at my Spanish novel, La sombra del viento. I put a good two hours into it tonight.
I found a quote in it that resonated with me somewhat, which I will leave you with:

- Los libros son aburridos.
- Los libros son espejos: sólo se ve en ellos lo que uno ya lleva dentro - replicó Julián.


"Books are boring"
"Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you," answered Julián.

Hospitals and more

I went to the hospital today with the mother. She had to go to physiotherapy for her arm.
So thankfully it was only a brief visit to the 'nice' part of the hospital rather than the death-and-suffering-filled part (which I have visited a little too much for my liking).
But still, I got the same sense of depression oozing from those bland, white, clinical walls; like the expressionless face with which a doctor gives out a diagnosis.
I could not be a doctor.
I felt the same sadness that I did as a boy seeing smokers outside the hospital, just as the lead singer of Editors does (see below).

Then I visited the city centre, saw a few friends and had a little shop with the mother. Everyone keeps asking how I could even bring myself to miss Plymouth after living in Cardiff.
I can't really explain it, because I know Cardiff is so much bigger and has so much more to offer, but I will never feel the same about it as I do about Plymouth. I see part of me in Plymouth. I just feel right there, content that it's not the best place in the world but it's where I was born and I've seen it grow as I've grown.

In other news, the nation has gone mad since the X-Factor finals. It seems these two chumps, Olly and Joe, have divided the fair maidens of our nation in two. I have heard pretty malicious comments from both sides of this argument, with some stooping to outright insults of each finalist. The best part is how much I've heard the term 'he just HAS the X-Factor' being bandied around.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise you guys were all music geniuses? Oh no wait, you bought the Cheryl Cole album didn't you? Yeah, I thought so.
I loathe the term 'X-Factor'. It is just a gibberish marketing word which has no application to music whatsoever and is exploited to market the nation's next karaoke act. The average viewer of this show wouldn't know a time signature if it fucked them up the ass, yet they deem themselves fit to pass judgement on who has 'X-Factor'?

I'm not one to rise to silly trends and do what facebook groups tell me, but I didn't have 'Killing in the name of' by Rage Against The Machine so I have bought it.
I strongly urge you guys to do so too.
Even if we could get it in the top 10, it would be nice.
If it was number 1, I would love it (although it's never going to happen).
Simon Cowell has ruined Christmas.
He has stolen Christmas number one too many damn times, a slot which used to be taken by classic Christmas songs!
If he thinks I'm Scrooge, then he's the Grinch.

Home

 So, yesterday I returned to my motherland of Plymouth. It's brilliant to be back. I feel a sense of familiarity paired with an odd sense of unfamiliarity simultaneously.

Exiting the A38 and entering Plympton, I gazed upon those old paths and streets in which I grew up with a smile and a feeling of returning to see an old friend after a long time apart.

I invited my friends Sherwin and Luke to my house for a few beers. I picked them up in my car, having not driven for 3 months, which was, to say the least, interesting! When we got to mine, I instantly slipped back into our old ways, catching up, laughing and joking. I feel like, with all my friends down here, no matter how long I go away for, our friendship will always remain strong. Within minutes I was brought up to speed with what I had missed and it was as if I had never left.

I would have liked more friends to have come over but, what with them being broke and due to me inviting everyone on such short notice, it was only the three of us.

We went to the end of the street to catch a bus into town at about 11PM. As the bus came to a stop for us, the engine went off which made me think 'I swear they usually leave the bus running to let people on'. We boarded and, sure enough,the driver was fiddling with the controls attempting in futility to restart the bus, spurred on by a flashing battery light on the dashboard. Are they called dashboards in buses or is that just cars? Alas, I digress.

So, there we were stood, faced with a smattering of puzzled looking passengers, very aware that if the bus hadn't stopped for us it would probably still be functioning.

We abandoned the broken bus and called a taxi to town. It was a good night, not too crazy; which gave us time to have a good old catch up.

Since studying at Cardiff and being around lots of international students, my confidence socially in other languages has really improved. I was in a club called Firefly and a Spanish word popped up on my radar, at which time my ears pricked up and tuned in. Upon discerning that it was indeed Spanish that they were speaking, I approached the group while Luke and Sherwin were at the bar and started chatting to them in Spanish. This is something I would rarely dare to attempt with English people as we live in such a reserved society where people are closed up in their little cliques with no thought of talking to others, unless they are hammered and want to grind against each other's sweaty bodies. The Spanish people were really nice and I even got one of their numbers so I can text them to meet up again when we're all out.

Due to the lack of numbers last night, we're doing it all again tonight.

It's good to be back!