Crazy Dust

I hear her. Down the hall. Screeching like a howler monkey, and chances are she's flinging her own feces at the wall... or eating them. Not that it would look much different than her "baked sausages" experiment the other day. I'm tired of her. I abhor her. I while away my time thinking of ways to kill her and get away with it. Self-defense plea would probably work much better than the "she's a waste of skin" defense, unless they'd ever met her. If they had, they'd award me with a big shiny medal and hold a ticker-tape parade in my honour, for doing what God's too cowardly to do Himself.

Yeah. Crazy dust. It must be in the air. I feel it slowly finding its way past the follicles in my nose, and working its way into my lungs. They burn with insanity, each breath making them burn hotter and brighter. All of me burns with insanity. I feel as if I will be consumed. Flames lick at my insides as they search for a way to escape. Flames start to find the cracks in my skin, the pores, the flaws... it has to escape. I can't contain it any longer.

Then I will fade. Become as one I am surrounded by. In my insanity I will find my sanity, and tread upon the oceanside of Bacchus's home. I will revel in the excesses, and shimmer like the maenad of old.

VJing made simple

Er... no, it's not! I don't get it. There are a million different software options (all expensive as hell) and I can't tell what any of them do. Lots of faux knobs and faders, but what do they do? I want to do it, but don't understand it. And do you think you can find a decent starter explaination? Oh hell no!!

Maybe Andy can help me tomorrow in our tutorial. Otherwise, it's scrapped from the project.

Update: January

So, once again I've got nearly a one month lapse in the old blogeroo. So, here's a mini update to tide people over until I get a real entry done in the (hopefully) near future:

Started classes again. Realized that they're all pointless and assanine wastes of my time. Seriously. I sit in lectures and realize that I could be teaching the same thing, only much better and with an actual bearing on the education of those involved. With this in mind, I've started completely zoning out in classes, or not atttending at all.

Start a small war with my flatmate after she goes crazy on booze and drugs for the umpteenth time. Tried to get her kicked out of the flat, only to find out that by the time anything could be done, I'd be back in America. I seeth.

After 10 years, I stop being a chicken and get a Prince Albert. Google it if you're unsure. Syndie filmed the entire process, but in a tasteful manner.

Syndie and I trek to ASDA twice now on foot. Remarkable not because we went to ASDA, but because we walked at least 6 miles to get there. We did ride the bus back though. Read more about the adventures here.

I attend my first Burns Night/Portuguese Night party. Probably the first BN/PN ever in recorded history. I see the haggis be addressed, then violently stabbed. I partake of haggis and bacalhau. Because of weight loss, the kilt would not stay up, and was not deemed socially appropriate.

Charlie comes back from London after being 3 weeks late for school, only to inform us that she got married over Christmas break. She then leaves the following Saturday to return to her new hubby. In a drunken stupor, I bawl like a baby in the toilet of flat 103. However, there is now a chance I can move to Charlie's old room, which is much more quiet than my current hell hole.

This next weekend, I will go to see Stonehenge, London, and Amsterdam. Yes, all three in one weekend. No, I am not doing amphetamines.

I will go to Bath in two weeks to see the Roman baths (dur!) Whilst there, I will imagine that I am not surrounded by tacky tourists, but rather surrounded by the suave and genteel characters Jane Austen wrote about there.

I hope this tides you over for a bit. I'll hopefully blog again in the next few days, but heck... who am I kidding?

Archenemies

When I was in Lisbon, I was known as the superhero Bacalhau. I used the powers of Baixa Chiado and Marques de Pombol to defeat the evil Rato, also known as the dog Doug.

Now that I'm back in Plymouth, a new archenemy has risen to defy me. This one is known as Whittard of Chelsea, purveyor of fine teas and coffees from around the world. It's like kryptonite to this man. I feel weak in the knees every time I pass.

Today, I was defeated. Whittard of Chelsea made me concede to pull out my debit card and purchase a stove-top espresso maker. Yeah... old school.

God grant me the strenth to not purchase anything there for at least another month.

3-Day Weekends

Finally, after *mumble* years of college, I finally have a three day weekend every weekend! It only took me *grumble* years, and moving thousands of miles away to be able to do it.

I was supposed to have Tuesdays off, but I switched things around in order to A) have Fridays off, and B) avoid having class with Tiana. Yikes... that woman's a wretch. I'm sure she has a stout dram of Piss-n-Vinegar every morning. I know you're thinking that I'm just exaggerating, but I'm actually giving the lady some credit. You should ask my flatmate about her.

Anyway, these three day weekends should theoretically allow me to galivant around the countryside and see the sights. It should also allow me to work on homework and accomplish goals. Realistically, however, it will probably allow me to sleep in late, and sit around in my underwear while I surf for nifty stuff on Amazon or watch episodes of "Wonderfalls." Ahhh... life is grand.

Gym Pass

I bought a gym pass to the Uni's gym this morning. Yeah... isn't it lame that I have to pay extra money to use the gym here? Suddenly Reed Gym looks like a killer asset back home.

I also ran out and bought new running shoes. Oddly enough, Vans aren't made for running. I found a pair of cheap Diadoras for 10 pounds. Rock on!

So, hopefully the weight loss trend that I've seen so far will continue, and I'll come back looking a little better than when I left.

PS - Kilt guys: My USA Kilt barely stays on these days. Hopefully when my sister sends my formal kilt (long story) it won't be too big either.

On Proposals

No silly, not wedding proposals (although I have received one since I got here... but that's another story.)

I'm supposed to be working on a proposal for my Experimental project. Only 500 words, outlining what I want to do for my big project, and how I plan to set about doing it. It's mainly so that I can get assigned a tutor that will best be able to aid me in the endeavor. However, this stupid proposal is driving me nuts. Every time I think I've got an idea hammered out, I come up with something new, and scrap the old idea. Seriously, the idea for the project has changed about 30 times now, if not more. Some have been rather lavish productions, until reality encroached, and other have been extreme minimalist productions. I'm uncertain what to do. This is the main focus of my time here (at least for me) with education, so I want to make this project worth while. I want a show piece that I can take back to Idaho and be proud to show people. Not some goofy semi-funny 10 minute piece that looks like any old person off the street did it. I want something that will wow the crowds. Maybe I'm just thinking too grand scale, and putting too much pressure on myself. I don't know.

Hopefully I can decide on something in the next few days. I think I've got a main idea worked out, but some of it's going to be complicated. I also want my Panasonic DVX-100 camera back. I want to film on a DV camera worth my time and effort. Whaah!

A Week Off

I'm now back in Plymouth, after my great trip to Portugal. Plans in London were a bust, so I had to come back to Plymouth sooner than planned. While that was a bit of a bummer, it wasn't such a bad thing due to tube strikes in London and a lack of money. So, in the mean time, I've just been wasting a large amount of time with Syndie this last week. So, here are some of the things that we've been doing to fill our time.

Smallville Drinking Game: After watching numerous episodes of the show Smallville we were able to notice certain trends that happen in EVERY episode. After you have an extensive list of trends, it's just natural that you'd start a drinking game. Every time they do something on the list, you take a shot of cheap Chardalusco wine. 3 episodes in, and you're totally plastered. Whoohoo! Syndie wants dibs on blogging game details, so I'll refer you to her blog.

Children's Art: When you're walking around the City Centre, and you see a wall plastered in artwork by children, what do you do? If you're me, you get the twisted idea to draw things and write things left handed, so that it looks like a kid did it. For instance, draw a dog's head with foam all over the mouth. Then write underneath, "Sandie looked like she ate ice cream. Now she lives with Jesus." Then, go to the City Centre late at night, and hang your artwork with the other drawings. Yes, I do realize I have issues.

Stare At the Window of Chelsea of Whittard: This is one of my favorite stores. A whole store devoted to coffee, tea, and chocolate. It's like Jesus made this store just for me! The reason that I stare at the window display all the time is because there's a gorgeous Gaggia espresso machine in the window, and it's been reduced from 300 Pounds to 150! A great price, but still a little too steep for me, when I can't take it back with me, and can't drop that much money for a few months of espresso. So, in the meantime, I'm just forced to stare and lust at the window display.

School starts anew next week, but I don't want it to. I still have assignments I was supposed to do over the break to complete (er... start) and I just can't be bothered. I also need to figure out my new schedule for this term. Hopefully it's not as messed up as it was last term... but I'm sure it will be. Arrrgh!