Danger, excitement, romance and a murder most foul...

...have little to do with this post.

Well now, it has been a rather long time since I have shown any attention to this, my own personal little corner of the interweb. A month, in fact, and I'm sure you'll agree that whilst a week is a long time in politics, a month can be a veritable age in internet time. So then, you may all be interested in hearing what has been happening to me in the last month. Then again you may not, but since you are here I am going to assume that you are, so pour yourself a coffee, make yourself comfortable and let me bring you up to speed...

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Returning to Aberystwyth

Yes, once again I got to experience the thoughorly unpleasent ordeal that is the train journey back to Wales. As usual I travelled back with Jake, but this time we were accompanied by Jenny as far as London on her way back to the H.M.S Liverpool.* The one good result of the tube strikes that had decided to, err, strike on this day was that we told the underground to "sod off" (not literally of course, although if anyone would care to inform the London Underground to sod off, then be my guest) and we instead opted for a taxi instead. 10 minutes and £7 poorer later, we walked into London Euston feeling a sense of accomplishment that our traverse across London town had not been sullied by the presence of tubes and commuters. We aslo felt hunger. Lots of hunger. So thus began a trip to the Burger King (not before I had been ripped off for the "pleasure" of using some rather substandard toilets - that's 20p I'm not likely to be seeing again in a hurry), where the ingestion of cooked plastic in a bun occured. After that it was the same old rubbish journey to Birmingham, only to experience our usual case of being messed about as we were told to goto Wolverhapton for a 2 hour wait for the next train to Aberystwyth. Thankfully coffee and a PSP made the time go faster, and before long we were sitting on a train finally homeward bound. The rest of the journey back was fairly uneventiful; we popped into 'Spoons for a quick pint and some dinner, taxied up the hill (that is getting a taxi up the hill, not the thing that airplanes do) and the last thing I remember is sitting in the flat drinking Whiskey. I shall assume for the sake of simplicity of remembering that I did find my way to bed at some point. Either that or I never did, and my entire life from that point onwards is all a delusion induced by extreme lack of sleep. Whoah, actually that's kind of scary. Not as scary as my next tale, however. Welcome to...

Exams

Barely had I been back a week, when exams reared their hideously ugly head. Revision was as horrible and monotonous a task as it has ever been, which would probably account for why I didn't verymuch of it. During this time I had dared to secretely hope that the exams at university might somehow be slightly more bearable than what I have been subjected to in the past. Perhaps we would be in more comfortable surroundings, with comfy chairs and large desks that wouldn't sway violently when you tried to write owing to an offset hieght difference of an inch on each leg. Predictibly enough however the exams were just as bad as the ones you get at school and 6th form. In fact they were worse; the exam halls here are larger casuing them to take upon an even more intimidating air, at the front was placed a raised stage with a long table where upon invigilators sat observing us like a vulture might sit and watch a person who is at deaths door. To make things even worse we were instructed to only sit on odd numbered tables, which just goes to show how accademically advanced university studies are, since if you cannot perform simple mathmatics then you can't even take the exam, despite the fact that I am clearly studying History posess about the equivalent ability to process any form of arithmatic as a Windows based computer.** I am however pleased to report that I did manage to find an approproate table on both occasions, and I feel that while the exams could have gone better, they could have gone a lot worse too. Results are published on 26 Feburary, or at least in the close proximity of that date, so fingers crossed that things turn out well.

Lectures

Lectures begun again next week. However, before attendence of the lectures could occur it was first neccesary to attempt to decipher the frankly incomprehensible timetable that they give to us.*** Along with lectures have also come the innevitable seminars, which have started this week. Well, they were meant to start at any rate. Complications regarding when and where to meet and lecturer abscences mean that I haven't as of yet attended very many. From the one seminar that has occured thus far I can report that these still follow the theme of shuffling into a room, not saying anything and generally attempting to blend in with the furniture.

Birthdays

In the past month no fewer than two birthdays have come calling. I know for a fact that they happened at some point, however I have some difficulty in recalling exactly what happened at both events. The first was Tara's, which was a good night out. Me, Jake and Sam had decided that since we are, after all, elite gentlemen and must act accordingly, that we should go dressed in suits. So we did. I think we may have got some odd looks (although probably not as odd as the ones Tara got, if you saw here outfit you would know what I mean), and I think we were asked why were dressed that way by the bar staff in Varsity, to which my response was "because we are better that you, you uncouth rapscallion, now bring me my drink wench!". And this is why it was a very good thing that I was not the one doing the talking. After this I recall heading to Pier, only to suddenly realise that we didn't like it there very much and then walking back home. Via 'Spoons, naturally. The night ended drinking whiskey (I sense a common theme occuring in how my nights end) and watching American Werewolf in London. Right before bed I decided to go outside to get some air since I was not feeling too perky (obviouslt Jack had a vendetta against me that night). My next memory is waking up the following afternoon with a strong desire for revenge against whoever it was that had been hitting a sledgehammer against my head all night.

The second birthday was Jake's. This began quite well with a pleasent sojourn in Wetherspoons, and it was at this point that I discovered quite possibly the besterest thing in the world ever. 63% strength rum. Needless to say my memory becomes more that a little sketchy after I started on that. After miraculously managing to get ourselves up the hill (via the all night spa for supplies), the evening ended with me, Sam and Huw singing Happy Birthday to Jake whilst he was asleep on his bedroom floor, and then feeding him coffee granules before watching Spinal Tap. This time the night ended in rum (hah, weren't expecting that were you!?).

And the rest

After the exams were over I decided to treat myself to an accoustic guitar since I have been missing playing due to my electric being at home, and also because I've been wanting an accoustic as well for a while. However upon inspecting the price of guitars in Aber's music shop, I came away thinking that perhaps my loan might not be happy about my guitar purchasing plans. Thankfully, salvation was found in the form of eBay, where for £56 including postage, I managed to get a beuatiful black accoustic with a blue magpie pattern on the finger plate. Pictures will be posted as soon as I find my camera and batteries for it.

I have attended ReLoad twice since returning. The first was a mistake since I consumed so much rum that I ended up dancing. Picture that for a moment. Me. Dancing. In fact, not only dancing but dancing on stage. Shocking. I also managed to spill my drink all over my jeans at one point, which put me in a bad mood since I had paid good money for that rum and coke. Although thankfully I forgot about the incident 30 seconds later when I had dashed to the bar and purchased more beverage for consumption by my good self. The second ReLoad was also a mistake, since I spent it alternating my time between fighting my way to the bar and sitting on a sofa ocupied in being mind-numbingly bored since not many people had turned up. And then some drunk girl next to me decided to start up a conversation, which mainly involved her asking me my name over and over and stroking my hair. Not that I have any problem with that in itself of course, but the realisation that women only start conversation with me when they are drunk was a less than cheery one.

The History society has finally started doing stuff now, although so far it's only activity has been a mini pub crawl.**** We visited a few places I didn't know existed and after attempting to see how many people would fit into a phone box (6 I think), we went to Pier. Well tried to anyway, me and Jake got fed up of waiting and went elsewhere, namely to Marco's (which for those of you who don't know is a bloody good chippy at the bottom of the hill that drunk people goto at 2am in the morning). Now I am a fully paid member of the History society, meaning that I get to go out drinking with them more. Like tomorrow for instance. Mmm drinking.

The only other thing of note that I have to mention here is the sight of Huw on Sunday evening bouncing down the coridoor shouting "Mardi Gras", opening his door, jumping again, hitting his head on the door way and falling to the ground and the door shutting behind him. Jake found him later on his floor sobbing. Quite clearly, then, there is rarely a dull night in Aberystwyth.

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So that has been just about everything that has been happening to me in the last month. Apologies for the length of this post, but I had rather a lot of stuff to get through. I promise that future updates will not be as long and will contain pictures and flashing things as means of compensation. Things have begun to calm down now, and except for lecturs I can't say particualalrly much is happening at the moement. Which is a good thing too since lectures and uni work seem to be doing a a rather good job of eating up all of my time. Ah well, that's what I'm here, it's all good. :-)

Until next time...

On the next installment of Aladdin's Cave: Cynical rantings regarding Valentine's day produce mildy comic results.

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*Jake has informed me that on his visits to Liverpool, there are apparently anchor shaped objects placed at various points in the city. This has led me to believe that Liverpool is in fact really a top secret vessel of the royal navy. I have never been to Liverpool myself, but since these reports came from a person who beleives himself to be a pigeon, I am inclined to believe them.
** Would you trust a Windows system to give you accurate results for anything?
*** It was all covered in strange numbers. I am beginning to seriously wonder about this departments fixation with numbers.
****History students (and most lecturers and authors) are quite fond of drinking as a whole. I guess constantly viewing the world in an historical context is enough to drive anyone to drink, since it gives you the grim realisation that hummanity has made many mistakes in the past and we are making them all over again right now, but hardly anyone seems to notice since they are too wrapped up in such important issues as what so-and so said about whats-her-face at some generic awards ceremony and the 'footy'.