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Oh no, this “health” crap is beginning to work.

Mar 9th, 2010
by Allan.
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Bullet point post time, ahoy! Just felt like writing a wee bit, even if it isn’t particularly exciting. I’m not making you people read these things!

  • 76% in the first class test in Maths! It wasn’t particularly difficult stuff, but still, please with myself for having done so well despite not having done higher maths.
  • I hope there are some redeeming classes for my course in second year, because so far, my two favourite classes (Engineering Applications – the major practical class, and Engineering Materials – about the structure and attributes of materials) don’t continue into second year for my course. Gutted!
  • Hurray for springtime. Boo for the fact it’s been getting cloudy the past few days, and I’m expecting it to start raining at any time. I hate the rain. Remind me why I love Scotland so much given it rains so much?
  • Health stuff (I’d originally written “health crap”, but that suggests a lack of enthusiasm.)
    1. Cycling is much more enjoyable when it’s not bitterly cold. Still, it was nice having the canal to myself. There were always a few runners and other cyclists, but as the weather gets warmer, there are gonna be more and more people – s’gonnae  be murder polis to get along the canal in summer!
    2. While I have my lower body covered, upper body exercise is much more difficult. Getting out on a bike is enjoyable, and because you’re travelling, you don’t get all de-motivated from a feeling of not getting anywhere. Working your upper body feels more difficult because it takes it out of you much quicker, and I tend to give in pretty quickly, and if I give in too early, the exercise does nothing, and if it does nothing, there’s no gain, and if there’s no gain, it takes it out of me just as quickly next time, and then I give in… and it’s a vicious cycle.
    3. A couple of my uni friends intend on going to the Uni gym on our big long breaks on Thursdays. That would be an excellent way to sort the above problem. But, I’m incredibly self conscious and don’t want to be the awkward skinny guy in the gym.
    4. Bananas are awesome, especially given they are one of the few fruits I can actually eat. That is all.
    5. While I’m still far from having a really healthy diet and being “fit”, I’m significantly better than I was last year, and I can feel the improvement. You really do feel crap if you have a bad diet and don’t exercise. I find that I feel better about myself these days, a bit more of a spring in my step. Oh jeez, I’m actually beginning to enjoy this trying to be healthy thing. How disgusting!
    6. I’m totally destroying anything I may have achieved the past couple of days by binging on Vimto sweets right now. Anyone want to get me some willpower for my Birthday?
  • I need to find a good local barber. I’ve still not even looked around here for one, I just make detours to my old barbers (where I’ve been going since I was tiny) if I’m down the road seeing friends. I’m a bit of a creature of habit.
  • I have discovered that I get all tongue tied and monosyllabic upon being served by a pretty lass in the supermarket. This is why I am no good at life. :P

Posted in: Cheek, Good times, Thoughts, University.

A night on the town shouldn’t be stressful

Mar 5th, 2010
by Allan.
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I really feel like I’m a failure as a student, in some respects. I don’t drink alcohol – automatic black mark against me, there! – and I really, really, really, do not like “clubs.” While I don’t drink, I’m fine being around those who do – up to a point. For me, a good night out is a trip to a pub, where people have a few pints, we have some good banter, maybe do the pub quiz, or laugh at people on the karaoke – it’s a good laugh, you enjoy yourself, and it’s totally relaxed. Some might argue it’s a bit boring, but not everyone can like the same stuff, eh?

Clubs on the other hand, I just… don’t like them. I’m a quiet, reserved person. I can banter, I can even make the odd outrageous joke, and I don’t mind a bit of loud music – but going places where I can’t just have some banter with my mates, because the music is way too loud, where the main form of entertainment is to get up and dance? It’s just really not my thing.

Now, we didn’t actually go to any ridiculous clubs tonight (not for lack of trying), but nonetheless, my dislike of them is pretty relevant to the rest of this post.

Was out for Mark’s 18th tonight. We dropped by the Strathclyde Union for a bit of a nose, but it was closing soon, so we moved onto Rufus T’s – my kind of place. Rock Pub! Excellent! Bit pricey though, so we move onto… Bunker. A club. However, it’s a Thursday night, it’s relatively quiet, we just sat and talked away – was fine, I was enjoying myself, cool.

But that’s where the night started to enter into uncomfortable territory. First of all, being the first time me and my uni pals all got together for a night out, it was also the first time I seen what they were like drunk. They’re not… bad, but for christ sake, don’t you have anything else to talk about other than sex? That sounds really prudish, but it’s not. I’m perfectly happy to listen and laugh at such stories – the problem is these stories are told (With minor variations) over and over and over. As I’m the sober one, I’m the only one who seems to care that it’s getting less and less funny with each telling.

Plus, they also decided they were quite done with there, and we’d try and get into somewhere a bit more lively. Gulp. Nowhere else is still letting people in though (it was near enough 2AM), so they opt for… Casino. And this bits a double whammy of discomfort. First of all, watching peer pressure in action. Lyle has effectively banned himself from the casinos for taking a bit too much in the way of risk, yet was pressured by Marty and Kirk into going in. Naturally, being a sober voice of reason, my protestations to leave well enough alone were not listened to. This is part of why I don’t like drinking that I don’t tell my uni friends – I don’t like how I feel it changes people, I don’t like that it makes people force their friends into doing things they don’t want to do.

I didn’t particularly want to go to the Casino, but I also want to keep my friends happy – I don’t want them to think that I’m a miserable bastard! However, thanks to my out of date passport (I wanted to renew it, but knowing Mark’s Birthday was coming up faster than I could do so, I didn’t bother) I got knocked back. That was a welcome cue to go home. Laters folks, I had a good night, no, no, don’t you worry yourselves about it, no, you don’t need to leave and go somewhere else, I’m quite happy to go home, no, seriously, I mean it, no worries. Geez man. Get in taxi, get home, finally relax.

Really, the point of that over-long breakdown of tonight’s events is that I’m torn between two conflicting desires:

  1. I want to go out with my friends and have a good time! I don’t like sitting in my house all the time, it’s boring! I don’t want to seem like a miserable git and imperiously veto anything they suggest that I don’t like, either.
  2. On the other hand, if a night progresses along a line I’m not comfortable with, I just want to go home – this does not mean I haven’t enjoyed myself at some point.

And so, the problem is, on the one hand, I want to get out there, have a laugh with people, keep them happy, but on the other hand, I need to try and get them to understand that sometimes, I will get really uncomfortable, and want to go home. This is no fault of theirs, this does not mean I’ve not enjoyed myself, it does not mean they need to go elsewhere to keep me happy – instead, due to the fact I’m so prone to such discomfort, they should take the time I did spend with them as being a good effort on my part, and then enjoy the rest of their night without either feeling like crap because they feel they’ve driven me off, or feeling like I’m a boring old spoilsport.

Ugh. This post is barely even bloody coherent, but sometimes, you just need to just spew garbage in order to make yourself feel a bit better, eh?

Posted in: Good times, Rants, University.

Motivational Exercise: 10 goals

Mar 3rd, 2010
by Allan.
1 comment

Trying to cheer up a pal, Mairi suggested that he write down 10 things he’d like to achieve this year – absolutely anything! Thinking it quite a good idea, and to make the point that it’s easy as pie if you put your mind to it, I came up with a list of 10 things in less than five minutes.

  1. Get good grades at the end of my first year at University
    • This one was a pretty obvious place to start, and is rather self explanatory. Everyone wants to do well for themselves in education.
  2. Get a job.
    • I need a job. Having your own place is expensive – especially when it comes to food. Plus, I can’t spend all summer doing absolutely nothing.
  3. Go camping in the Highlands!
    • I’ve been talking casually of this for a while, but Tracey was the one to put a solid plan in motion tonight. Kind of. In that she asked me and Mairi if we wanted to do it. We’ve still got to actually make a plan. But it will happen! I hope.
  4. Get in shape.
    • This has been on the cards for a while, and I’ve been acting on it with my Cycling. Being unfit and lazy just isn’t fun for anyone.
  5. Improve my diet.
    • Goes hand in hand with getting in shape. I eat a lot better these days than I did this time last year, but there’s still room for improvement. I bought a big bunch of bananas at the supermarket today as part of a renewed effort in this area.
  6. Get out more.
    • As in for nights out. Ironically, since moving into the city, I go out less, because I don’t have the weekly pub quiz night down the local. Of course, since I don’t drink and am a quiet person who just likes the banter, going out to clubs and shit is not the kind of thing I’d do – but even if we just find a place up Glasgow that does a quiz or suchlike I can wander up to a couple times a week.
  7. Improve family relations.
    • Bit of a vain hope this one, but nevertheless something I’d like to achieve. This March 21st will be my Brother’s 15th birthday, and thus the 5th anniversary of the last time he had any contact with my mum. It’s also been around that, give or take a few months depending on family member, since the rest of my mums family saw him – including a younger cousin who is the same age – there’s a mere two weeks between them, so as you can imagine, they were very, very close, ever since they were tiny. Really, it’s a stupid situation with roots in the parental animosity that follows a divorce, and it’s high time this estrangement ended.
  8. Pick up Photography (for fun.)
    • Not proper photography, but get out there and just take fun pictures, give me a hobby. These days I don’t actually really have a hobby – I used to draw a lot as a child, I don’t do that anymore. I used to play games all the time as a young teenager, I don’t really do so much anymore – not enough to describe myself as a “gamer” anyway. Cycling technically counts as a hobby, but it’s not an interesting one, by it’s nature. Combine it with photography though? Double win.
  9. Buy a working phone.
    • Though we now have a landline in, the phone that came with the flat is gubbed. We can answer calls (sometimes) but we can’t make them. So, we need to buy a cheap phone so we can take advantage of free weekend calls.
  10. Vote in the upcoming general election.
    • I have a great interest in politics, at least by the standards of people my age, such that I often scare Mairi when I start arguing with the telly, or provoke (absolutely ridiculous) responses from others such as “You’re 19, you can’t have an opinion!” Last I checked, the voting age was 18, and as such, I’m well within my rights to have developed an opinion. As far as I’m concerned, voting is incredibly important – so many people my age complain about their country, about the government, yet have no intention to vote. If you don’t vote, you have no right to criticise – unless you’re an Anarchist, in which case not voting and slagging the government is kind of your job.

So there we go! Ten goals for this year – some rather simple (replacing phone, voting in an election), others requiring a great deal of commitment (doing well at Uni, getting in shape), but all important to me.

Posted in: Cheek, Good times, Politics (Oh no!), Random, University.

What the hell, body?

Mar 1st, 2010
by Allan.
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I cycle for somewhere in the region of 5 or 6 hours, and my legs ached for the next few days.

I run about for an hour doing laser tag, and my legs are in agony for the next three days, and still painful enough to make coming down (yes, down, not up!) stairs a huge effort.

I mean, seriously, what the hell. I know running has a greater effect on your legs than cycling, what with it actually involving impact on your knees and what not, but this is ridiculous. Plus, as little as a couple years ago, I could quite happily run around in the park for hours without this bother, and two years ago, I was really lazy. I’ve now been cycling for months, and logically my legs are in much better shape than they were two years ago, but apparently, they get knackered more easily.

And speaking of cycling! Due to:

  • being shattered after my long cycle
  • SNOW! MORE FRICKING SNOW!
  • and these dead legs

I haven’t cycled in nearly two weeks. Today was really nice, perfect for a nice wee cycle along the canal, but there was no way I was putting my legs through that. I miss cycling! Plus, if I’m away from it too long I’ll lose some of the progress I’ve made on my lazy ass. Bah.

In short: Stupid human body and it’s ridiculous reactions to exertion.

Posted in: Cheek, Rants.

Don’t you wish your Uni was cool like mine?

Feb 25th, 2010
by Allan.
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Nothing like a first year School of Engineering and Computing wide “team building exercise” in the form of a day go-karting and laser tag!

The karting was allright – I’ve been go-karting before, and I’m pretty awful at it, plus, it’s very competitive, since it’s not actually team based. Plus, creepy Darren is a total wobbly granny driver – I couldn’t over take him, which then left me open to being brutally rammed by Mark and Lyle! Those bastards! :P We were meant to get three rounds of Karting, but our groups only got two due to starting late – this was balanced for some of us due to having had four rounds of laser tag.

Laser tag is awesome. I’ve never been before, so it was a fun, new experience to me. Due to being relatively good sports, we weren’t able to win the first match, because we couldn’t take the damn tower. In the second match (against a different team, which included most of my usual “team” at uni :P ) we were the ones camping in the tower, and we narrowly scraped a win just after being stormed from both directions by the entire enemy team.

The third game (same teams) was a base cap type match, where they pretty much wiped the floor with us. But the fourth match, where I ended up on their team? Absolutely destroyed the enemy team, despite some incredibly cheap behaviour. I mean, really, I’ve just taken you out for about 10 seconds till your pack recharges, don’t then TACKLE me to prevent me from getting into your base – bit of a cheap tactic. Still, managed my personal best that round, so HA.

Totally forcing Fraser to go back to Scotkart for his birthday this year, but we’ll do the laser tag this time. It’s ridiculous fun. It’s also ridiculously tiring, I’m not a running person. If it had been bike mounted lasers, I’d have come out of it a bit less dead. :P

Posted in: Cheek, Good times, University.

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