Sleepless in Bristol

Afternoon!

Again I haven’t posted for an age.. I actually miss doing it so you’d think I’d find the time to post something, wouldn’t you? TUT. Maybe it’s the long dormant student laziness asserting itself? LOL :)

So I’m into my third week of Access Studentness :) and apart from worrying that I’m not finding the time to do the suggested 15-20 hours of independent study and the fact I’m shattered.. I’M LOVING IT :D

It’s so nice to be doing subjects that I’ve chosen rather than the ones I’m given like in Sixth Form. I love Psychology and History.. I’m really, really enjoying them! Sociology I like but it takes so long for me to understand it.. I’m in a class with several people who understand it becuz they’ve done a bit of it before and they kind of take over the lesson a little bit but I just find somewhere quiet on a Saturday or Sunday evening and re-read it and it’s fine usually (I really need to remember to take that book back I borrowed next week..) so hopefully I’ll be okay :)

The Access students that I meet are all really nice :) one really smells but you can’t do much about that.. anyway.. Wouldn’t say we were friends exactly but we always seem to get together lunch times in different groups and stuff which is always good :)

One thing I really need to work on is my confidence.. I was so angry with myself in History today due to not stepping up and answering questions that I spent so much time on Sunday evening making notes on.. sighs so by the time I’ve stopped panicking about speaking up and being wrong.. someone else answers the question and I find out I was right.. ARGH.. but I suppose I can take pleasure from the fact I knew the answer and I was right.. even if I am being a big girl :)

So yeah.. everythings ticking over nicely :) the next serious concern is that I’ll have three essays due on the week of the 16th Nov .. EEK. But nevermind.. I’m not going to do any extra hours over the halfterm and take advantage of the no college time to type my wee fingers off!

FUN TIMES. So I’m going to go and enjoy my sausage rolls and Danish :)

Squish.

Evening!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently.. I’d imagine my tumblarity is in the negative numbers now :( oh well.. it can’t be helped.. I’ve been busy :)

So today I finally OFFICIALLY became a student again! 4 hours and £1751 later and I’ve got a brand new sparkly Student Card (including a horrendously uncomfortable looking ID photo) to put in my very empty wallet!

I’m dead chuffed though :) I’ve finally done it.. after 10 years of faffing and farting about I’ve taken that step which I should have done at the end of GCSEs. I’m under no illusions that this will sort all those niggily little issues I have with my life but it’ll bloody well help! :D

So now all I have to do is knuckle down, work hard and get my sorry ass to University. I really REALLY want to go to Falmouth.. It’s lovely down there.. (obv the surfers help <3).. and the Midget-Ninja has nothing but praise for it so I’m totally digging the idea :) I just hope to God I can afford to go even with the help I’ll get from the return of my tax (ie Student Loan). If not I’ll have to stay here but that won’t be a bad thing.. not ideal but not the end of the world :)

UGH. I’m so excited I can’t tell you. I feel I should do an Oscar-like Speech to thank all those that beleived in me and pushed me to do it but I’m definately not that soppy (and there’s no way I’m crying on the bus :P) but they know who they are and that I love them to peices and please god don’t stop, LOL.

So Tuesday at 9am I start my first lesson :D (Psychology) armed with my 4 subject note book, my new Parker pen and a cheery smile and nervous stomach :) there’s worse ways I could spend my day off from work. No. I need to change that way of thinking to keep me on the path of learning.. I’m a student.. a full time student and work is just a part time job. That’s it Jessops.. you’ve bled me dry for 4 years but now you’re on the back burner.. you’re just bank rolling my educational pursuits :D

Yes! Freedom!

Squish.

Morning!

Again I’m neglecting Tumblr.. I’m such a bad Tumblrian! :(

My London trip went quite well.. exhausting but I enjoyed it :) I finally managed to get into St Pauls Cathedral.. admittedly trying to get into it on Sunday (twice) was not the best idea really what with them being strangely busy :P but you couldn’t take any pictures inside which kinda sucked AND they charge you £11 each to get in! PSH. But I really liked it.. I’ve seen a few cathedrals in my time but I think this one is my favourite so far! :) I was a little disappointed at one point by the realization that the Duke of Wellington.. The GREAT Duke of Wellington was called Arthur. LOL. You’ve got Nelson with the fabulous name Horatio.. but Arthur?! Arthur Wellington conjures up an image of an old man, carpet slippers, cardie and horn-rimmed glasses rather than one of the greatest Generals that ever lived! :) I think we should Post-Humously change his name.. to something far more appropriate.. I’m thinking along the lines of Augustus.. General Augustus, Duke of Wellington :D much better and you wouldn’t need to change very much cuz he’s still A, Wellington (Duke) :P

Then we walked across the Millenium Bridge and down to Tower Bridge becuz their website announces when it’s due to open and close and I’d never seen it open before so that was cool :) what surprised me was how quiet it was.. there were loads of foreign visitors (I think I heard a Londoner ONCE in the entire day) but it wasn’t any busier than the last time I went which wasn’t during any particular holiday time! Where were the masses? Bloody Credit Crunch. Anyway.. after Tower Bridge we decided to immerse ourselves in some culture and spent sometime wandering the halls of Tate Britain :D lots of art and history to be had! :) think that some of the paintings are 400/500 years old and the colours of still so bright :) brilliant! Was a LONG ass day tho.. left at 6.45am and didn’t get home until 9.30pm but I had Wednesday off as well as I recouped to a certain degree before going back to work!

I decided to give the Distant Shore APP another go t’other day and I’m addicted again! ARGH. I don’t know whether you’ve seen/heard of it but the jist is you’re stuck on a desert island (which has lot of sun loungers and other beach stuff for a deserted island) and you walk along the beach collecting shells.. 5 shells give you a bottle which you can write a MSG in and throw out to sea and it’ll wash up on someone elses beach and they reply and you can strike up a conversation with them. At the same time you’re wandering you will also find other peoples bottles on your beach that you can reply to :D good, eh? :) it’s been a few months since i used it so I thought I’d give it a whirl :D already collected a 41 year old divorced woman from Hertfordshire.. LOL. She seems very nice but I think I should probably give her a heads up about my genetic abnormalities before she falls madly in love with me (you hear stories, okay?)! On Twitter, I’ve discovered a love for twibbons.. which are, for those that might not know, little pictures or symbols that you can get over-layed on your own profile picture.. they can be for causes, such as the recent “I <3 NHS” or “Free Gary” or you have silly ones like the portrait invading squirrel or, my person favourite, “who is steve?” :D I’m changing mine every so often.. I’ve had “I Love My iPhone”, “Who is Steve?” and the Squirrel so far! LOVE IT! If you want to do one, google “twibbon” and it’ll give you the URL :)

I feel I should explain “Who Is Steve?”, not because I feel you are sitting there giving it “what is this ‘who is steve?’ lark, Squish” cuz I’m sure you don’t give a toss. I’m telling you cuz I can.. Simple As! :P T’other day on Twitter @Benjamin_cook ‘s flatmate, also a Ben (I think), received a txt MSG from a mystery person demanding to know why Steve was being a dick and ignoring them when he always replied when they were going out and they didn’t care anyway so sod off (not in THOSE words but that’s jist of it!) and he asked us, his loyal followers, what they should do! He decided that they’d try and ring this person and tell them that they weren’t Steve and more importantly, WHO IS STEVE?! :P so they audioBoo’d it.. (a 3 minute audio clip website) and it rang and rang and they were contemplating whether it was a boy or girl but it rang and rang so we thought we’d never know. By this time, #whoissteve had become a Twitter trend.. LOL. They made several attempts to contact this person, who turned out to be a girl and they audioBoo’d a few of the attempts but the question of #whoissteve was never answered.. but after txting her a bit she said she was glad that it went to the wrong number! Aww! I’d love to know whether she knew she was being watched by @benjamin_cook ‘s 2000 odd followers :P if you at all interested in this.. go to Twitter and search for #whoissteve and had a read, look and listen to it :) possible listening suggestion when you’re doing it: Hello - Lionel Ritchie? :P

Right.. That’s more than enough for today! Look after yourselves!

Squish x

(via blogsecret)

Morning!

I’ve been neglecting you and I can’t apologise enough! I humbly kneel with drawn sword and beg your forgiveness! :)

I’ve been in a semi-bad way the last few days and have been moping so I didn’t think you’d want another post of whinging! :) but I feel a bit better today so I thought i’d write another post as I’m off to work 6 hours early and have plenty of time to do it :)

So I’ve managed to struggle thru 2 of my 3 weekends and I’ve just got this Saturday and Sunday to contend with and then I’m off for a week ^_^ whoop! I’m seriously in need of a break, lol, I’m surprised I have any hair left after pulling it out continuously for the last few months! But the fun times begin today.. so many fun times that I’m not convinced I’ve got enough of a financial backing to cope with it all! LOL. But you can’t take it with you, right? :D

The reason for heading to worm 6hrs early is that I’m meeting Midget-Ninja for a morning of “Ladies what brunch and cinema” :D whoop! :) haven’t “Ladies what lunch” with M-N for an AGE! So very excited. Also I’ve recently downloaded the AudioBoo program.. it’s MicroAudioBlogging basically.. along similar lines to Twitter.. where you only have 3 minutes :) I’ve done one which was AWFUL.. I was hoping for some good old fashioned west country accent but my telephone voice betrayed me :( BAH. But I bet you that M-N will be up for some silliness ^_^

Tmrw I’m off to London for the day with Mum ^_^ COACH-TRIP! I wanted to road-test the Roadtrip Playlist I made with Makala for the secret dayout on the 31st but I decided I didn’t want to go on my own so I can’t do that now, doh. I’m hoping to finally do some proper sightseeing.. I’ve tried twice before to get into St Pauls Cathedral but have failed miserably (bloody Sundays and Lord Mayors thingy) so thrice time lucky.. and I’d like to have a look round Westminster Abbey :D cuz I know I’m goin to be an excited wreck tonight and won’t be able to sleep (got to be up at 5.30am. Sad times.) I’m going to go attraction hunting on t’internet.

So anyway.. the rest you know about. Tom coming and the like. Oh wait.. on the 27th (thursday) I’m going to Cardiff with the Tippetts :D WHOOP! Photo-ma-graphs abound and we’re going to see the Dr Who Exhibition :D but more importantly.. we need to check on how the repairs to Cardiff Bay is coming along.. bloody Government blowing it up! ;) and I’ve decided to do a mini-version of the Manchester Bucket List for Bristol.. although there’s not much that Tom would like to do as far as I can do, DOH. I did find a nice bar/café I’d like to go to called the Tobacco Factory ^_^ cheap food, live music and a theatre apparently! :D

So all go :D FUN TIMES.

Squish.

(via blogsecret)

I wouldn’t… You’d regret it. TRUST ME.

darkshines:

1. There are a lot of foods that affect the taste of your seminal or vaginal fluids, but pineapple is one of the strongest. Eating a lot of pineapple makes you taste sweeter, and less ‘fishy’.

2. When you cut up a pineapple at home, you normally chuck the skin, core and ends in the bin. The pineapple canning industry doesn’t though, these bits are used for making alcohol, vinegar and animal feed.

3. Each pineapple plant only produces just one pineapple per year.

4. Unripe pineapples don’t just taste vile, but can actually be quite poisonous. Eating it causes serious throat irritation and it has a strong laxative effect.

5. Pineapples grow slowly, and can take up to two years to reach full size, so we pick and eat them when they are much smaller, but if they are left to their own devices they can reach up to 9kg (20lbs).

6. If you want to speed up the ripening of a pineapple, so that you can eat it faster, then you can do it by standing it upside down (on the leafy end).

7. Traditionally pineapple juice was used as a diuretic and to induce labour.

8. The Bromelain enzyme in pineapples breaks down proteins. This means that you can use pineapple or pineapple juice as a meat tenderiser.

9. The same Bromelain enzyme means that you can’t put fresh pineapple in jelly, because it breaks down the gelatine. You can stop this from happening by boiling the chunks of pineapple in their juice or in water for a few minutes, or you can use canned pineapple.

10. In case you find yourself on a sailing trip in the tropics without any Ajax, you might like to know that pineapple juice mixed with sand is very good for cleaning boat decks and machete blades.

Oh I love this… I’m so going to use these facts IRL :D useless knowledge ftw!