Thank'ee

Quote of the moment:
"Happy Birthday"

Thank'ee Prill matey (and Jimmy matey) for: "The Curious Incident of the WMD in Iraq"

Twas very good. I got so distracted by reading it (can be ready in 45 minutes) that I forgot to say thank'ee. So thank'ee.

Tears Stream... Down Your Face...

Quote of the moment:
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

- Coldplay, Fix You. Best Coldplay song ever. The rest of the album's ok, but this is... it's like listening to "Wake Me Up When September Ends" before it was released as a single and overhyped and overplayed. Even that hasn't stopped me loving Fix You yet.

Took Sarah to school to get her bus to the airport for the Malta netball tour, at 3am (4am BST). Maybe staying up til then playing ISS 98 wasn't such a good plan.

Rents dropped me and Vicky off at the station today in tome for the 2 o'clock to Liverpool Street. Vicky was crying and kept saying she didn't want to go back! We went together as far as London, then split to go our seperate ways on the Tube. Amazing how she didn't cry at leaving me! I scared someone into hurrying to the other end of the tube carriage when I took my backpack off and started opening the top. Lol. How else am I supposed to take my washing back with me!?

Been doing my best for rowing club communication this weekend via text message. Tonight, however, I'm staying in with my lovely "Environmental Fluid Mechanics" notes. Argh. 9am tests. We hatesss them we doesss.

Stop All The Clocks

Quote of the moment:
"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good."

- W H Smith Auden.

The clocks have gone back. I'm waiting until 2.30am (which used to be 3.30am) to take Sarah into school to get the bus to the airport for her Malta netball tour. My dad had his maps spread out on the table to tell her about it. Lol. I'm sure he'd love to go back, but despite his British birth certificate (my grandpa was a Royal Marine) he's still liable for national service there. I wonder if that's expired yet?! Perhaps they'll call up Sarah instead...

Erm...?

Quote of the moment:
N/A

Amazingly dull day. Waiting for Sarah to land at Stansted in about half an hour's time. Will probs go in the car to pick her up, just because there's nothing to do here (and she'll probably object to having to tell the same stories twice).

The Fake Sound Of Progress

Quote of the moment:
"A new government has been announced in southern Sudan." - BBC News.

Hurrah for progress.

Am now at home. My fluid mechanics lecture finished on time for the first time this term, allowing me to scurry out at 4pm as asked for by the parents, but various accidents still made for a 4 1/2 hour trip home (instead of about 3). I slept through most of it, so no worries! Vicky was collected from the station about 10.30pm, so there's only Sarah's return from Dublin tomorrow to complete the family reunion.

Oh... er... yay.

:p

Reasons Today Was Awesome

Quote of the moment:
"Would you like my number?" - someone who understands my lack of speaking ability.

1. I turned up to rowing expecting a 5k, only to do a 1k plus evil circuits. Mmmm, medicine balls, my favourite.

2. Met my parents afterwards at Tesco Extra (which is near and on the way to/from the rowing club) and got my shopping done. Even after a £10 phone top-up I hadn't neared Vicky's demands given on Tuesday when they visited her, so I added a litre of Smirnoff. Well, it was £2.50 off.

3. Rents took me on tour of Cardiff Bay in search of Argos, so I wouldn't have to lug my shelves for my overflowing room back from the one in town. Failed, so went to the one in town and I lugged them back anyway.

4. Using the new inner tyre, with working valve (part of the Tesco shopping list) my Dad fixed my bike. I was just standing by and holding stuff occasionally.

5. I went to "Rubber Duck", the regular Wednesday club night, dominated by sports clubs. The rowing people were there, merry as ever. There are 3 reasons this was particularly awesome:

• i) I caught a Rubber Duck (yes, as in a mini bath one) with a VIP free entrance etc pass for next week's "Duck" attatched. Lineout skills demonstrated.
  


• ii) I also caught a Rubber Duck T-shirt. Got a hand to it, as did 3 other guys. Ripped and rolled like a pro, but it was a size "9-11"... kids/womens, I have no idea. I donated it to Steve's girlfriend (visiting from Liverpool) because it fitted her.
  


• iii) I spent the last 2 hours of the night in the company of a certain novice women's squad member, gradually being robbed of my collection of green glow bracelet things (it was a Traffic Light night). Number, name, halls, course, next training & social she's at, plus... filled the rest of the time.

No Rain, No Pain

Quote of the moment:
Well it's been a while hasn't it?

How are you doing? Have you done something different with your hair?



IT LOOKS CRAP!!!

"New post" emails from Weebl (which are merely the website notice reproduced) are almost as good as The Mighty Ten, which is apparently a new feature. The proof is displayed below:

"I like my women like I like my coffee – black, imported from the 3rd world, and at an exploitedly(sic) low price."

I'm willing to forgive the failed attempt at "exploitatively" for that.

In other news, my rents are coming to see me tomorrow, meeting me in Tesco Extra carpark (yeah baby!) after my rowing appointment. I'm unlikely to go rowing due to the overly high river (funny thing, it rains lots in Cardiff. Wales + Atlantic Ocean. Good combo) but I'll be doing a 5k "ergo". Ergo is slang for session on the rowing machine, aka an "ergometer". Tis only one version of an ergometer, which is a machine desinged to test muscular performance, but that's why it's called slang.

But I digress. A 5k ergo indeed, which should be great fun. I estimate around 20 minutes, but it'll probably be more once the "I feel dead, can I have a break?" factor kicks in. On the plus side, it'll make my next 2k seem fun.

Unrelated but also positive: my rents concurred that it was daft for me to go home a day after seeing them, especially because they're staying the night at my granny's nearby and going home the same day as me. So I've scored a free ride home. Hurrah!

P.S. I saw Dougie coming out of the union when in the ticket queue at lunchtime. He looked slightly less emaciated, which was shocking. That makes 3 so far: Paddy (obviously), Dougie and Inger Nag, from Vicky's year, who I spoke to half way around a pub crawl when slightly merry. Plus Anthony, of course.

An Equation For Comedy?

Quote of the moment:
"You seem like a nice, polite crowd, so I think I'll talk about rape." - Lloyd Lambeth.

Went to the BBC New Comedy Awards semifinals tonight. It was supposedly a Civil Engineering Society social, but basically involved the secretary getting an allocation of the free but guest-listed tickets and us meeting outside to get in.

Some went down better than others, there was a mix of storytellers, punchliners and audience interaction. My personal favourite was Lloyd Lambeth, who, according to the CV Google just gave me is the "regular compere for Warwick University's Comedy society". Yes Rob m8, you probably told us so a year ago.

The first semi was, however, won by Sarah Millican, who did a routine based on getting divorced. It had more of a continuous mutter of laughter than loud outbursts, but was funny in a painful "The Office"-like manner.

Test this morning wasn't great. Estimate around half marks. Couldn't get the intergration by parts to reach an end point, couldn't get started on another question. Both worth 10 marks out of 50. Sigh. Also one earlier question was far too easy. 4 marks for one step. I checked it against my copy of "A Calculus Refresher" though, so maybe it was a deliberate gift. Without that booklet and my resit notes I'd be bummed on pure maths, because the "lectures" are a crook of... poop.

We get notes with all the formulae and working removed, plus both rotating lecturers talk faster than Sheribum. One of them has a thick accent too, but it doesn't make much difference because as a non-multitasking male (like 90% of the audience) I spend my whole time frantically copying and don't have time to listen to the explanation. Without the explanation the notes are pretty useless anyway, since they explain things the same crap way as the incomprehensible A level text books.

On the plus side, my Dynamics lecturer is Anthony Huang's father, or at least relative of some sort. He has the posture, the walk, the talk, the glasses, the hair, the timidity and the suit which hangs off him in bags. In my last lecture with him I gleaned absolutely nothing from what he was saying, but his notes are good so I don't really care. I just have to concentrate on not remembering Vince's birthday, following Anthony as he drunkenly searched for Soho and "some girls".

Mmmm... Rice Krispies...

Quote of the moment:
"Mmmm... Rice Krispies..."

I'm now officially labelled a Rice Krispie fanatic. I sat in the "discussion room" by the library dreaming of them and making Homer-esque "Mmmmm" noises. My own fault for not getting up fast enough to have breakfast before going to revise with Richard and a couple of other people. Didn't get to eat until 6pm. I only got up at 2.30pm, but that's still obscene, especially when I was doing pure maths for most of that time.

I couldn't remember half the stuff but I still managed to explain intergration by parts to 3 people who did it half as long ago as I did. Hurrah!

In summary, a totally dull day. Going to attempt to do some weights now, for the first time since I got here, since the bruise on my spine from falling into a radiator the second night I was here is completely gone and the niggling pain has nearly gone. I wasn't too concerned, since the same's happened at least twice with my neck and it's cleared up after a while, but it's still annoying.

This post: 2/10. Mildy informative and devoid of entertainment.

The Old Man And The Sea

Quote of the moment:
"3 minutes and 23 seconds."

That was the time for my slightly altered version of "The Project" - no VK or Smirnoff Red, so Smirnoff Black, plus out of Strongbow -> both pints being Carling instead. Still, I did it in under 3 and a half minutes quite easily, with asides to the guys who were videoing me on their mobiles. That makes me think the slightly addled rowing guy meant 4 minutes average and Lewis managed 1 and a half. Hmmm. If not, I'm A) disappointed and B) well under the record. Oh, and C) reasonably well hammered. I didn't chunder afterwards either, although I did have to burp repeatedly to alleviate the intense pressure on my stomach.

I went a slightly different way home to K3, resulting in me waiting for them oustide their door. Rhodri got in, but Steve and "Little James" (as supposed to "Big James", who's on a Scouts and Guides camping weekend trying desperately to pull) were stuck outside while I waited by their door. After about half an hour of them circling the building and me dodging the view of the security patrols by hiding in the stairwell, they tried to get in and I jumped in behind them. This was after me tackling Steve and pinning him to the ground oustide (while my flatmate +friends walked past, returning from the same bar/club we'd been in. Lol. He then ran into the kitchen and grabbed a fork, which he proceeded to try and stab me in the arm with. Cue large graze. Ouch.

He then grabbed a rather sharp cooking knife, which, despite my swaying posture, I removed with a swipe of the K3 flat broom, followed by a twist of the wrist. Honestly. They though I was drunk! Anyway, I ended up going home with his knife, his fork and the K3 broom, which are all in my room at the moment. I would have given them back but Steve refused to say goodnight from within his locked door, unlike the other two (Rhodri and Little James). The other two occupants weren't present, due to scouting, as explained, and going back to Caerphilly for the weekend.

I'm old, and Cardiff's on the coast. You can hear the seagulls when you wake up in the morning. Hence the title. Sigh.

October 22nd

Quote of the moment:
"He enlisted when he was 15 and landed in Normandy on D-Day, which I think is quite cool." - Emma, my neighbour from K2 who bought me a birthday drink, when I asked when her dad was in the army. Her DAD. Who is EIGHTY ONE. Her mum's 47. That's 34 years younger than her husband and only 29 older than her daughter. Emma's dad's SIXTY THREE years older than her.

Stops me feeling old, that does :D

The underpass by the gate into Senghennydd Court has flooded! W00t! Fortunately the pavement on one side is raised up high enough to still be easily clear of the surface, but there was a black BMW stuck there which had stopped at the lights. LOL.

Steve came up with my social shirt name:

"The White Rabbit"

That's as in "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date...". He's not even in my department, he just waits at least 5 minutes every time he rings to collect me before going to training/rowing/night out/anything at all. Lol again.

If Only I Had A Spell For Drawing...

Quote of the moment:



Lolathon. Ron's going to win the "Ethical and Environmental Officer" by-election just for being awesome (and serving beer on Al Murray's the Pub Landlord illegally at the age of 16).

Handed in my first piece of coursework today. A 3rd angle orthographic projection (the one with plan, end and side views, not the 3d drawing) of... a hinge. Wow. The next one is a simplified version of the Trevithick building, which houses the restaurant, library, computer rooms, a lecture theatre and the drawing "office". That'll be an isometric projection one (3d), which should be fun.

Hurrah for the first year not counting for anything (except getting into the second year).

What's In A Name?

Quote of the moment:
"I'm ordering the social shirts next week, so you need to start thinking about what name you want"

Hmmmm. It's a tough one. My personal favourite out of the seniors is wannabe PTI John, who has "Dangerous Brian" on his for no apparent reason. Others include "The Edge", "Cuthbert" and "Logistics". So, there's obviously no great need for reasoning or anything, but:

Skinner: Er, um, we need a name that's witty at first, but that seems
less funny each time you hear it.
Apu: How about, "The Be Sharps?"

Suggestions so far: Bushman, Bushtucker, both due to trying to sit on a very solid-looking bush near the gate when eating chips on the way home. Liz Hurley, for last night's mimicing in the corner and getting hauled outside incident. Relic, for turning 20 in two days time. Doorstop, for falling asleep half way through the front door of the flat on the second night. Pints, as a straightforward pun on my name. Smith, for thinking "What is the most common name in Ireland" was a trick question and discarding Murphy.

Perhaps Orinocco or Timbucktoo?

But I was very, very drunk...

Quote of the moment:
"W00t! £10 on the floor! Awesome!" - me. Unfortunately I was persuaded to spend it on shots, but nearly half of them (3) went down me, so w00t.

Rowing social this evening. As predicted, didn't work out. Ended up with a Mechanical Engineer called John (obviously MALE) who quit before we headed into the union due to a lack of ticket. Personally I carried on, right through being cautioned by the bouncers over mimicing puking in the corner. My bad. Was in training for "The something" which began with P, but I can't remember it. Anyway, I was downing half a pint of Carling then topping it up with a bottle of either WKD or VK (the latter bars, including the union, only had VK) and dowing the result.

The full thing (starting with a P) is a pint of lager and a pint of snakebite, down half the lager and replace with WKD, down half and replace with VK, down 2 mouthfuls and replcae with vodka shots, do the same with the snakebite, then down both "pints". The average is about 40 minutes but according to the 3rd year (medic) who told me about it (while tied to someone else) Lewis, the 6ft6 novice women's captain, has done it in 6 1/2 minutes, which is the rowing club record. That's what I have to aim for then. Apparently he chundered afterwards, so no shame there either.

Bicep Curls With 440g Weights

Quote of the moment:
"Tomorrow's social: I want A1 turnout! Who ISN'T going to be there?! You? Why not? THINGS TO DO?! Have you even been to ONE social yet? NO?! If you aren't there tomorrow night you may as well stop turning up!" - James (Sexton... LOL... or as his social shirt from last year says, Cuthbert... LOL again), our novice men's rowing captain.

He doesn't think much of people who are only here to get fit. You have to A) want to be in the competition boats so much it hurts and B) drink so much at rowing socials that you hurt yourself on the way home. LOL again.

Tomorrow night we're apparently doing a three-legged pub crawl, with novice men tied to senior women and vice versa. I'm not convinced it'll work, because the turnout from the senior women might be lacking. The novice women, on the other hand, might well be persuaded to turn up en masse for once, and the senior men, well... drunk freshers that can't get away? Irresistable.

Imagine Nation

Quote of the moment:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein.

Seen on a poster in the Physics and Astronomy wing, which contains the largest of the 3 lecture theatres I rotate between. It's also the one with the most legroom and the (cushioned) bench seats instead of fold-up chairs. Ideal for napping when the lecturer is late, as I discovered this afternoon. I only woke up when he dropped the handouts for the row on the ledge next to my head. Lolski.

Said lecturer is bizzarely fond of giving us proofs for the P2 level calculus we're now on. We're engineering students, not maths students (or science students). We want to know what we can do with it, not why it works. Just for him, though, a proof of the above quote:

You can't acquire imagination.

Elizabeth Daplyn

Born October 14th, 1978 in Leicester. Died July 7th, 2005, between King's Cross and Russell Square tube stations, aged 26.

BBC obituary.

Me -> my mum -> her sister (my aunt) -> her husband (my uncle) -> his brother -> his daughter, Liz Daplyn.

More simply, she was my uncle's niece. Was at said uncle's holiday cottage in Scotland at the same time as us a couple of times. Kind of like someone in your year who was only ever in your class for "complimentary studies".

Backlinks

Quote of the moment:
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Having a cold leads to staying in,
Staying in leads to blog browsing,
Blog browsing leads to Blogger Buzz,
Blogger Buzz leads to Backlinks,
and backlinks link back to Blogger Buzz.

I wonder if Mr private road construction links to my posts as well as commenting?

Cool Things Come In Threes

Quote of the moment:
"...I thought to myself, 'a little fermented curd will do the trick'. So I curtailed my Walpoling activites, sallied forth, and infiltrated your place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles."

In the last hour:

I had a moment, such as described by Rob last year, where I realised my lecture was actually so interesting that I actively wanted to be there. Awesome.

I left said lecture to walk to the Sainsbury's around the corner to buy milk (and other things) to have brekkie between lectures and saw a guy in a "CHEER UP GOTH" t-shirt.

I saw a packet of Norwegian Jarlsberg in Sainsbury's and wondered where the bouzouki player was.

...Meh...

Quote of the moment:
CBA - sums up my day. Don't make comments about that rhyming or I'll slap you.

I was suprisingly responsive this morning, managing to jump up, turn off my stereo alarm and return to bed without really waking up. Bad move. Missed my first CAD (Computer Aided Design) lesson. Woke up again at 10.30, half an hour after it finished. According to Brummie Ruth, who had it last week, it was only going through a set of printed off instructions which are online, and everything's on the sheet. The teacher (not a professor or doctor, nor does he lecture... kind of like Dawky not being a teacher) was apparently doing very little. Bah. I'll go do it when I CBA to walk back here between lectures.

I had nothing from then til I was supposed to go rowing this afternoon, so I went back to bed. When I'd got up, showered, dressed and breaskfasted (at 2pm) I discovered a text message from (Rowing) James saying he'd messed up the numbers so since I was last on the list for today I'm bumped to Saturday. Since it was raining by the time I'd have had to be there, I wasn't really fussed.

So, another very meaningful day. Sigh. Looked at some Dynamics stuff online, worked out how to do it in my head, decided I'll be bummed once I actually have to start working, went to supper, decided not to go out, found a Cossacks crack online, played for far longer than I meant to, am now going to bed. It still doesn't feel like I'm really into uni because there's nothing really new to think about. Three hours of Environmental Fluid Mechanics tomorrow might change that, but I suspect it will at least start with basic hydraulics, syringe type systems etc. Yawn.

More circuit training tomorrow night (tonight). W00t!

Google Reader

Quote of the moment:
"Wow... a record: 4 girls drunkenly dancing against me, 2 of which (whom?) fell over." - I did actually marvel at that out loud during the rowing social. I'd have had to yell to overcome the bass though. "School disco" in a club small enough that 80% of the clientele were rowers tonight, plus some random girls. I think the ones incapable of standing were from the latter group.

Google Reader Is like the program Rob blogged about, where you get the Atom feeds from all the blogs, sites and other things in a nice little program that shows you new updates, etc etc. Fortunately Google has now made it a doddle for anyone with a google (Gmail, anyone?) account to do exactly the same.

Simply login, search for a page and click subscribe. Unfortunately of the small selection of active blogs I tried, at least half don't seem to have atom feeds available. Shocking stuff.

Make me and Rob happy: enable your atom feed today.

Washing Never Dries In Wales

Quote of the moment:
"Oops. Black threes don't freeze the pack, do they?" - Me, half way through a game of Canasta. I remembered everything right but that and the number of cards to deal, but I checked the latter online prior to starting. It was a worthwhile break from the predominant Rummy in a marathon 3 1/2 hour cards session, broken only by cooking bacon sarnies when hunger struck (beating spoons on my ribcage, of course).

I had my first fencing session this evening. It was meant to be in the Great Hall, but the Union double booked fencing and Babyshambles. In recompense the booking fee was converted to one free drink for everyone in the bar while a hasty meeting took place.

Soon afterwards we were on the dance floor of Solus, the union nightclub, which was amazingly sticky underfoot and rather colourfully lit. Nonetheless we had an introduction to posture, advancing, retreating, thrusting and parrying, but due to the delay never actually got the chance to done the kit and 'have-at-thou'. It was still quite entertaining and certainly more fun than Tuesday (and Thursday) night circuit training with the sadomasochists of the rowing club.

My washing is still damp anywhere with more than one layer, so my room still requires crawling, or at least pushing between the layers of nearly dry t-shirts. That calls for a change of theme:

[Cue LOTR: ROTK music from Shelob's lair, fade to black...]

Pub(quiz)masters

Quote of the moment:
"In Washington DC, anything other than the missionary position is illegal: true or false?"

Tis true. The Sunday night quiz (aka Clever Dick) in the union bar was most entertaining. Myself and 4 of flat 3 (aka the Kings of K3, plus traitor) came 7th overall out of around 30 teams and won a "free round of drinks" (a £10 bar voucher) for winning the round about stupid laws: true or false. Proof of real intellect, that is. £3 to enter, but a whopping £60 bar tab for the winners, so well worth it. My three welsh flatmates plus aquaintances got one less than us and called me Judas all the way home. That included going into the chip shop which produced a classic worthy of HP himself:

"Salt, vinager or ketchup?"
"JUDAS!"

In other news, I did my washing today. There was so much that my poor drying rack was overwhelmed and I had to tie several bits of string across my room to hang everything on, and a small crawl space underneath everything to reach my desk.

[Cue Mission Impossible theme, fade to black...]

When Do I Get The Lycra One-Piece?

Quote of the moment:
"Come on! Lower! Lower! Yes! Keep it down! Keep it down!" - An unusual thing for a girl to yell at you as you're pumping away, but such are the delights of the rowing club.

I missed the meeting outside the gym to walk to the boathouse, but by sheer cunning (I used my bike and cycled up the towpath by the river until I saw it) I caught up as they arrived anyway. Hurrah for me. Perhaps talking until past 4am isn't such a great idea. I forgot to mention, though, that Ruth has the single most untidy room I have ever seen. There are about 5 layers of crap on her desk, 3 on the bed, stuff hanging out of drawers and a pile of clothes that wouldn't fit anywhere at least 2ft high (and 6 long). I was impressed. It's actually more than twice as bad as mine, which was the reigning champion of all the ones I've seen here.

Anyway, I was at the boathouse til about 4, as predicted. Parts of the boat and manoevering it from boathouse to river and back were first, followed by training in the tank. We were then unleashed onto the river.

Fortunately there were only 5 novices (no group was more than 6) and we had seniors in the bow, stroke and number 7 seats (That's the front and two furthest back seat respectively). We progressed from arms only to the full stroke pretty quickly and from 4 resting and 4 rowing to all rowing by the end, complete with feathered oars.

The rain was only a mild dampener (BOOM BOOM) because when you're actually rowing you barely notice it. It's only when you're crouched on the quay in your shorts and t-shirt holding the boat in that you shiver (and your teeth chatter, if you're me).

The final thing for my group was the first 2km assesment of the year. With a given target of 6 1/2 to 8 minutes I was a touch concerned, but thanks to the 'encouragement' offered by the two female coxes present I was actually the first of 5 to finish. W00tage! I got 7:23, with the others varying from 7:33 to 8:13. The best novice got 6:50, but fell over trying to stand up afterwards.

We were weighed directly after getting off, t-shirt, shorts, trainers and all, but the scales must be faulty because I was 14st8. That would be a loss of over half a stone since leaving home. Highly suspicious, because although I have done the OTC fitness test and the rowing circuit training since I got here, I've also got Fresher's Belly syndrome. Definitely dodgy.

I made it to the Union bar in time for the exceedingly dull second half of England vs Austria (apart from Beckham being sent off), cooked my most successful mashed potato yet for supper (the potatoes are sprouting quite happily now) and spent the evening p0wning Flat 3's film quiz (43/100 when I arrived, 87 when I'd finished) and watching Wayne's World. So, the Scooby Doo ending it is:

The mask is removed...
Kids: "Why, it was Fat Will who tampered with the scales!"
Will: "I would have got away with it if it wasn't for you pesky kids!"

Lay On, Macduff

Quote of the moment:
[accent=Brummie]"If I get my mum to bring me my bike, you have to buy me tinsel things for the end of the handlebars. Pink and silver, please."[/accent] - Ruth, from K8 (who did buy me chips last night. W00tage)

Another low-alcohol night tonight, chatting into the wee hours in one of the upstairs girls flats, to compensate for "Pub Golf" with the Civ Eng Soc last night. I downed everything in one, but fortunately it was only a 9 hole course, otherwise I might still be asleep. As it was I had to have a reverse breakfast before my one lecture of the day, which was fortunately just revising A-level pure maths. After that it was back to bed until 5pm. My Friday timetable is le awesome.

Yesterday morning I had my first "Engineering Fluid Mechanics" lecture, as well as the second in the afternoon. Genius scheduling: all three hours of it in one day. It's apparently been failed more than all the others put together, and the average percentage until two years ago was in the low forties. Last year it soared to a peak of 51%. Ouch.

The lecturer spent all three hours today giving a general non-mathematical introduction, talking Cardiff Bay for most of the two hour afternoon lecture. Apparently there are 11 million Welsh sheep and 3 million Welsh people. Sheep also produce 4 times the waste of humans and when there's a storm all the water from the mountains is full of nasties. The same thing happens when the Millenium Stadium has a big event and the sewer system can't cope at half time. Having a barrage stopping the water reaching the sea is therefore a slight problem.

He also mentioned that to produce 1kg of beef takes 44,000 litres of water. A litre is 1dm^3, right? So the Felsted pool contains about 250x100x15=375,000 litres, or 400,000 to a reasonable degree of accuracy. So all the water in the pool would only get you 9kg of beef, or 36 steaks. Hmmm. Doesn't actually sound so bad considered like that. A chicken producing 1.5 times the waste of a human sounds worse, but I reckon that includes soiled bedding.

Tomorrow(today) should be fun: Rowing induction from 12 onwards, predicted to end around 4 o'clock, followed by Fencing (3.30 til 5.30) if I have the time and/or energy left.

...And damned be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

Booze-update

Do you like what I did there?

There was a two hour break from drinking for supper, apart from for those who felt rich and bought supper in the pub. I managed to nurse one pint for an impressive 3 hours, while the two guys I went with knocked back 6 each. I'm not the one who's going to be drinking dirty pints tonight...

(Little finger to mouth. Cue evil laughter.)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Quote of the moment:
"No training for the novice squads tomorrow, but we'll be meeting around 3 to go for get-to-know-each-other drinks" - That's prior to the 8pm meeting for all rowers (in a different pub) and the traditional post-sports afternoon union night, called "Rubber Duck".

Given that the club shuts at 2, I make that a solid 11 hours on licensed premises.

The aforementioned information was given out at the end of the first circuit training session, which was suprisingly manageable (apart from aching stomach muscles after failing to stretch off on Saturday). There was a warm-up, stretching, 45 minutes circuit training, a warm-down, core strength stuff for about 15 minutes, stretching and home. Since the session didn't get going until about 7.30 (having "started" at 7pm) the girls didn't get to do the circuits and we didn't do their "come on a jog to show you where the boathouse is", which was apparently a mere 3 mile round trip.

The circuit training consisted of exercises marked out down the middle of the hall including squats, burpees, press-ups, sit-ups, tricep dips and various holds (legs up, press-up position etc). Each group of 5 people has to do an exercise for a minute, run/jog for a minute, then the next exercise for a minute, etc. Those not doing an exercise had to jog laps of the hall around the exercising people in the middle, sprinting one side of the hall from end to end.

Sounds fun, doesn't it?

It wasn't as bad as I expected, but I've definitely got a bit of (extra) freshers belly. It'll soon come off with 2 of those a week, but the next (Thursday night) clashes with my Civil Engineering pub golf, so I'm taking the unhealthy option then.

I'm spending Saturday from about 12 at the boathouse (meeting outside the Talybont gym at 11.40 and it takes at least 20 minutes to get there) which will include rowing in the 'tank' (a training pool with a fixed boat) and learning cox calls, learning to move the boats in and out of the water and doing the first 2km rowing machine assesment. Exciting shizzle all round.

Keep It Secret. Keep It Safe.

Quote of the moment:
Hi Will -- Thanks for joining MySpace!

Here's your account info for logging in:

E-mail: wpoyntz@hotmail.com
Password: ***************

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

LOL. It took me a good 20 seconds to work out what film that's from. Answers on a postcard to the following address...

Bag End
Hobbiton
The Shire
Middle Earth

Be warned, don't send by US Mail because they don't like the lack of a zip code.

The Training Timetable

Quote of the moment:
"Don't worry, you won't be getting up at 6.30 to go rowing just yet, but..."

Oh good. Went to the introductory rowing meeting this evening. It was impressively organised. There are 4 squads, each with a commitee member as 'captain': Novice and Senior Men and Women. Obviously I come under Novice Men, who number about 60, enough for a respectable 7 boats worth. There are apparently about 30 Novice Women as well, plus a load of seniors who mostly weren't there. There's a spanky new clubhouse in the new waterfront development in Cardiff Bay that will be moved into in a couple of weeks time, which is handy, and the first novice races are at the end of November, with the bulk being during the summer.

My training schedule for the week now looks like this:

Monday:
Fencing (coached), 6pm til 8pm
Tuesday:
Rowing Circuit Training, 7pm til 9pm
Wednesday:
Rowing Water Training, 1 hour of 2pm til 6pm
(Fencing Team, 2pm til 4pm, which I won't be in)
Thursday:
Rowing Circuit Training, 7pm til 9pm
Friday:
FREE
Saturday:
EITHER Rowing Water training, 1 hour of 9am til 1pm
Fencing Free-For-All, 3.30pm til 5.30pm
Sunday:
OR Rowing Water training, 1 hour of 9am til 1pm

Swim tests are supposedly tomorrow afternoon, but when a hands up was taken in the meeting over half of my squad were busy. The response from the captain was "Medics and Engineers on proper courses, is it?" Yeeees. If I turn up to all those sessions, I believe that would be 10 hours a week, in addition to the 40 I'm supposed to spend on my course. Oh, to be an arts student.

RIP, Felsted Account

Quote of the moment:
The time has come, the walrus said...

[Edit 16:31 - Or possibly not, as the pics on my blog have loaded once, but only once, since then. Server problems, perhaps?]

[Edit 3/10/05 00:15 - We have visual confirmation. That's a confirmed kill, Captain. Must just have hit 'back' unknowingly.]

Sigh

Didn't get in to the OTC. Sigh. There are a maximum of 35 spaces (allowing for dropouts, because they only want 30) and there were 140 applicants. The 9am Saturday morning bit eliminated about 60, about 10 left during the day leaving about 70. Of those 70, apparently nearly 60 would have got in last year, because there were twice as many decent applicants as spaces this year. There wasn't much to chose between everyone on the short interviews, 5 minute lecturettes or group discussion, so the fitness test, normally just a cause to tell people "you're in, but go running", became the deciding factor.

Add to that the fact that they chose to do a bleep test for the fitness test, instead of the usual 1.5 mile run, and it's hardly suprising I didn't get in. I'm not exactly the most agile of people, so the running between lines bit was rather unhandy. Especially annoying seeing as I would have been even further inside the time on the 1.5 mile run with the aid of chasing someone else in front of me and I passed the sit-up and press-up minimums within 90 seconds of the allotted 120 for each. Sigh.

A further annoyance is that it's only because of the structure of the "Wales OTC" that I didn't get in. Normally a large (and normally old) university has an OTC which takes in people from all the others near it which don't have their own. For example, Bristol UOTC also covers Bath, Bath Spa and UWE and everyone trains at Bristol. However, since the former University of Wales College "insert-city-here" places (Cardiff, Swansea, Aberystwyth and Bangor, from good to bad) are spread around the coast of Wales, there is instead a company based at each, which recruits a quarter of the total intake. Thus Cardiff has to turn away people who would have got in at Swansea and been top of the class at the other two. This was put politely by the officers and more accurately by one of the officer cadets as "Cardiff are always the best, Swansea are pretty good and Aber and Bangor are c***sucking mongs".

There is therefore the unfortunate conclusion that I would have probably got in to Bristol UOTC had I been at Bath, commuting to training and other problems aside. So, 9am til 6pm wasted, but at least I got a free lunch. Knowing exactly what's required will be handy next year too.