For The Record

Prawn flavoured noodles, cheese and tuna DOES NOT make for a good breakfast. ESPECIALLY once it's been allowed to get cold.

Adult? I think not...

With my twentieth birthday being a little over a month away, I cannot hide the fear instilled within me that, one day, I am eventually going to have to be an adult at some point. You know... the whole marriage, kids, credit cards, houses, mortgages, pensions, council tax... and God-only-knows-what-other-things-to-dread dealy. You always hear adults saying; "Well, I've always stayed 18 in my head...", which, let's be honest, sounds incredibly sad on the face of it. Today, however, I had an encounter that leads me to believe that there may actually be some truth in such sentiments as these...
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So, I'm in Boots in Broomhill, feeling a little disillusioned that they did not stock my leave-in conditioner and I'll have to go somewhere else for it, which is annoying in itself. Anyways, I thought that, since I was there, I would hand in one of my films from camp (none of which I've had developed yet through lack of funds). I sauntered over to the photo counter and, just as I was about to approach the assistant, a man cut straight in front of me to get his digital photos put on disc.

The fellow looked to be in his mid-thirties and was dressed in athletic shorts and a hoodie. I mean for goodness' sake, if you're going to push in front of me, at least LOOK important! Well, being used to situations such as these I just stood there and waited for my turn; being short I get this all the time - people tend to forget that you're there.

A few minutes later he turned around and apologised, claiming that he didn't know I was waiting and that he thought I was looking at the shelf behind us. "No, it's fine", I replied, if maybe a little coldly, when he proceeded to instruct the assistant to serve me instead (even though he was already dealing with him - what's that about?). The assistant replied "No, it's ok", which I was really insulted by, and asked the guy a question about his order. The guy replied by motioning in a very uppity and sulky manner for him to serve me instead.

I couldn't believe this was going on! In what looked like an act of chivalry this guy was ACTUALLY acting like a three-year old.

The only conclusion I see that we can draw from this is that some people really do refuse to grow up and be an adult.

Geez... I dunno about you, but I think I'd rather have the mortgage than be considered a tosser...

And what's so bloody wrong with us, anyway?

See, in place of this 'smiles and sunshine' post I actually have a different one saved as a draft. However, I do fear said post would offend a few individuals, therefore I have decided not to post it, but keep it for my own piece of mind. At least I've put my feelings down in some sort of format.

You're probably wondering what the hell I'm on about.

Well, there's this thing that has been bugging me for a while. And it's all to do with why the nations of Great Britain hate England so much, indeed, why EVERYONE hates England so much. My question is... why? What the hell did we do wrong?

It just hurts me as an English person.

I have a few examples but, like I say, at the risk of being politically incorrect I cannot really express them.

How sad, when we live in a society where one cannot even express their discrepances.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense... but hey ho, when does anything ever make sense.

I guess I'll be back once I've got my head together!

Food Talk

Briony: "Mmmmm Chocolate Cake."

Chrissy: "You can't whack a good bit of Tapton Chocolate Cake."

***LAUGHTER***

Briony: "It sounds like you actually want to hit the chocolate cake. I would say; 'You can't beat a good bit of chococlate cake'".

Chrissy: "But that's just the same thing. You're beating the chocolate cake." *imitates beating up a chocolate cake*

Chrissy: "You can just imagine it in a pub brawl... with it's Henry Lloyd jumper and Rockports..."

Briony: "The poor cake. One day it's walking down the street..."

Chrissy: "...And the next thing you know, it's set upon by a gang of youths."

Jennie: "I had a bad experience with chocolate cake once..."

Briony: "Yeah, she pulled a minging one."

Briony: "How could you get a minging chocolate cake?"

Chrissy: "I dunno... Maybe you could get a minging carrot cake."

Briony: "Do you want my strawberry?"

Chrissy: "Are you sure you don't want it? But it's pink!"

Briony: "I can't eat pink food. I'm a pinkatarian" *on reflection* "But vegetarians eat vegetables so I can't be a pinkatarian."

Chrissy: "You're an antipinkatarian."

Briony: *attempts to whack the chocolate cake but cannot break through the chocolate force field* "You really can't whack a good piece of chocolate cake!"

Chrissy: "... This is going on the blog..."

When Pranks Get Out of Hand...

The other day, I got a text message on my phone from an unknown contact, saying something to this effect: " Hey Chrissy, and how are you this fine afternoon? Bet you can't guess who this is! Mwahahahahahahaha! Text back. www.cbfsms.com ". I was completely freaked out, and accused Briony and Becky of this mischief, who both denied it. When Becky got one similar a few minutes later we charged into Bri's room and found the web site on her history, which was a free sms messaging service.

A plan emerged to text Jennie (who was in Nottingham visiting a friend at the time), pretending to be the 'bum-fluff' guy whom she pulled at the chippy the other week. We gave her Ian's number (with Ian's consent, of course) to text back on, but never thought that she would do.

Well, she did. She also text poor Ian at 3am on Monday night when we came in from a night out at Kingdom. He wasn't best pleased.

So.. we had to tell her the truth. I never once thought she might text him back cos she'd remained defiant that she didn'f fancy him and couldn't remember what he even looked like.

We agonised all Tuesday about how to call it off. We had the following ideas:

a. Steal her phone and delete the number
b. Text her from the website pretending to be an outside authoriy and reminding her that texting mingers is a criminal offence
c. Get Ian to text her and call it off
d. Just sit her down and tell her the honest truth

It happened when she came home from swing dancing. Briony did most of the talking, solely because Becky and I would've been laughing if we'd said anything. At first I thought she was going to be really angry, but she was great... She just laughed it off and expressed her suspicions.
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I was just so worried about how she'd react. If it had been me I would've reacted inone of two ways:

a. If I hadn't fancied him I'd have run home wuith my phone outstretched in my hand and been screaming: "Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh that minger from the chippy has just text me! What do I do!" and probably nothing would've come of it.
b. If I had fancied him I'd have been really upset and angry to find out my friends played a trick on me.

And because it seemed Jennie did fancy him (cos she text him back), this was why I was terrified of telling her.

So, the moral of the story is... Don't play tricks on your friends!

Some Handy Hints to Cut Out and Keep...

The Essential Guide to Clubbing - Dance Floor Etiquette

You may think that because you’ve already done swing dancing, ballroom, salsa or whatever the hell else on a dance floor, you know all the ins and outs of dance floor common-sense and courtesy. However, this is sadly not the case. Clubbing is a whole new kettle of, er… activity, and there be many a thing you need to learn to be fully qualified as a professional clubber. It’s a scary clubbing world out there, and to survive the bass and the trebles, the hotties and the mingers, the cheap drinks and sticky floors, it is essential that you are equipped with the following knowledge:

The Rules

1. Technically, if you’re going to go clubbing, you also need to be consuming alcohol (in your choice of volume). If you’re not drinking, you’d better be ill or driving. Therefore, the first rule of clubbing is… get bladdered.

2. Don’t even think about going out to a club without the intention of getting your boogie ass down.
(i) Dancing do’s: Move to the beat (if you just stand there, you’ll look miserable), be yourself (life is a boogie wonderland – enjoy it!) roll your hips and shake that ass!
(ii) Dancing don’ts: whatever you learned at school discos does NOT apply - no robots, no big fish little fish cardboard box, no jumping around in big groups - if you think you can dance great, you probably can’t, no swaying, no shuffling, no actions that mimic the lyrics and no chav dancing.
(iii) Therefore, the second rule of clubbing is… shake that booty.

3. The following is not acceptable on a dance floor; pushing, shoving, groping (boys, you may think this will get you attention but it just pisses us off!!), standing on other people’s feet, standing on your own feet, spilling drinks, dropping bottles, burning people with cigarettes, crowd surfing (this is to be saved for gigs) and conga lines (that’s just NOT cool!).

4. Ok, so you’ve had a few bevvies and your shakin’ that ass. Now you’re looking at the talent around you.
(i) Start by looking for hotties of the opposite sex. Or not, that's up to you.
(ii) If you feel two active hands on your hips, the best thing to do is check him out. He could be a proper minger, and you don’t want that.
(iii) If checking them out is not possible, look for warning signs from your friends. ‘Thumbs up’ generally translates to ‘Get in he’s well fit’. The ‘Wobbling Hand’ means ‘Erm… I dunno maybe you should judge’. The ‘Decapitator’ means ‘GET OUT GET OUT NOW! MINGER ALERT! EUGH!’ It is VITAL that you do not lose your mates at any point in the night.
(iv) In the unlikely event of you being the only person not pulling, the responsibility falls to you to rescue your friends from mingers. This is to be executed by pulling them away and dancing with them (force may be used if necessary).
(v) If you are unlucky enough to need rescuing, you should communicate this to your friends by giving a signal already decided at the beginning of the night (eg. scratching your chin with your thumb, tapping your head... etc).

5. So, with a bit of luck, you should be dancing with your bloke now. Get up close and personal. You want to be dirty dancing really, if you fancy a bit of a snog. You’ve seen the film… it can’t be that hard. Therefore, the fifth rule of clubbing is… flaunt it!

6. Now it’s the end of the night it’s up to you! If you fancy him get his number. If not, then run! So long as you’ve had a good time, that’s all that matters. Now all you need to worry about is getting home and finding the nearest chippy (however, this is NOT the place to pull. Leave that to the darkness of the nightclub!). Therefore, the final rule of clubbing is… have yourself a wicked time! :O)
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© 2005 Dr. Chrissy Page (PhD in Dance Floor Studies) and Dr. Becky Burrows (PhD in Social Etiquette) - Tapton Hall 18th October 2005
This document is dedicated to Miss Jennie Hurwood. Without your inspiration, this doctrine would not have been conceived. Thank you, Jennie.

Contracting Stupiditis

1. The Scottish Pound

Chrissy: I'd really like to get hold of a pound note, that would be so cool.
Jennie: They have loads of them in Scotland.
Chrissy: Yeah, but that's a Scottish pound, they don't count.

2. The Deaf Fire Alarm

Rob: I wonder what you'd do if you were deaf and the fire alarm was going off.
Chrissy: Well, fire alarms are pretty loud, maybe you'd still hear it.

3. Flannel Tongue

Chrissy: Do you ever get that feeling when you've been drinking... your tongue feels like a dry flannel?

4. Accented Thinking

Chrissy: I've been hanging about with Becky too long... I've started thinking with a Geordie accent.

5. Chicken Bits

Becky: What are those things called... the dangly bit under a turkey's beak?
****************SILENCE****************
Chrissy: I dunno..... Gibblets?
**************LAUGHTER****************
Chrissy: What?
Becky: Gibblets are the insides of a chicken.
Chrissy: Oh.

6. Dangerous Substances

Briony: *thinks to herself* I wonder if coffee and electricity would be as bad as water and electricity...?

You only THINK it couldn't happen...

Background Information: Our Hall of Residence is the only one so far not to have had a fire drill. All the other halls have had their's at about 6am.

So we've just sat down for our tea in the dining hall when the fire alarm starts going off, which is highly annoying. Who decides to have a fire drill in the middle of tea? We all had to congregate in the car park, where the Senior Counsellor (head of the SCR) was telling us to move back and make way for the fire engines. I thought... "Who calls fire engines out for a fire drill?"

Anyways, as it turns out, it was only our toaster in our pantry that set the alarm off cos someone had left it unattended. So the toaster is black and mangled and our corridor smells of chip fat.

I thought it was funny at first, and SO typical of our corridor, until I found out that we've all lost our security deposits (£2100 in all) and we have to pay damages too. Not happy! Luckily, Nicola has managed to remove the burn stain from the top of the microwave (where the toaster had been sat) and the smell is clearing, so the only thing I can see us paying for is the fire blanket.

It would have to be us, eh...

Things are getting worse... PleAsE seNd ChOcoLaTe!

Are they eck. I LOVE uni and I LOVE Sheffield! But you can send chocolate anyway if you like!

Yeh, so... it's been lots of fun at uni so far. Last weekend was our Fresher's Ball (Las Vegas style), with chocolate fountain, balloon modeller, casino, cocktail bar, live bands, shotgun weddings... me and Briony got married as did Becky and Jennie, we got very drunk and it was all good. The worst thing about the evening was my painful feet (after 4 months of no heels on my shoes - not good) and the incriminating video footage that emerged in the morning (predominantly me sat in the union lobby floor singing and threatening to 'pizza crumpet' people). Dear me. We also went to Gatecrasher One on Thursday night (singles £1 doubles £1.50 - legendary) and we were all winners by the end of the night, eh girls? ;o)

As far as my course is concerned, I'm still not quite sure what's going on, and how much work I should be doing and stuff, but I'm not too worried about it cos I guess it'll all become apparent soon enough, or as soon as we get some actual work set or something.

In other news... I'm starting my new job tomorrow! The lovely couple I worked for at the Blundell have a pub in Shef now, and have offered me a job - yey! I can't wait to get started.. even if this pub is 8 miles the other way out of the city centre... oh well!