Maybe I’d best get cracking? I have no motivation though. I used to be able to do an essay in a day, focus on it all day and that’d be it. Nowadays I get far too distracted far too easily, I don’t know what’s occuring. I think the more social I get as a person the more my attention span wanes and I go on facebook, check my phone and emails and go on MSN. I need to find the balance.

I watched a film the other night about Enid Blyton, imaginitvely called “Enid.” It was a good insight into the woman she actually was behind her books. I was a huuuuge fan of her books as a child, I read loads of them..and I still have loads of them. I never thought that she could be such a horrible woman though! She certainly wasn’t nice to her own children and was generally just quite self centred and horrid. It was a surprise.

Right, this essay needs doing. I’m gonna do it. No breaks or interruptions. Facebook is off, MSN is off, my phone is off. Go go go.

I don’t actually even have anything to blog about, dang.

Uni is stressful. Nearly time to test people for my dissertation! Scary times. Current dissertation word count: 500 words. I worked out my total word count for the year it’s: 25,800 words. Currently I’m 874 words done out of that word count. Errrrrrrrrr….

I want Christmas. My friends and I are going for a Christmas meal. Like a big family. How exciting!

Hallowe’en yeah? I’m getting on my soap box.

I’ve given it a lot of thought. The basis of Hallowe’en doesn’t annoy me. For people who celebrate it for the day that it is, that have done for centuries and have that system of beliefs that’s cool. It’s their day. Just like I don’t have a problem with Diwali or any other belief system’s celebration. Tolerance yeah?

What does annoy me, in the same vain it annoys me about Christmas and Easter etc, is the commercialisation of it. People, children mainly who haven’t really got a clue about what Hallowe’en is about going round dressed in the latest expensive costume, begging for sweets and money from strangers without any thought for the actual reason for Hallowe’en. Historically dressing up was so the evil spirits wouldn’t recognise you as they passed into our world…not so you could get more sweets. The adolescents who use it as an excuse to be anti-social. It annoys me. I don’t celebrate Hallowe’en, like I don’t celebrate Diwali, because I don’t subscribe to those beliefs. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to go down the commerical route and use it as an excuse to dress up and beg.

Yeah yeah, I went to go see Green Day last night. 21 years ago on the 28th October they formed. And they are still bloody amazing.

I went to go see them at the LG Arena, missing my 6-9pm lecture…shock horror. The support band, I only caught half of, but they were really good, Prima Donna is what they were called. I don’t think the crowd got into them as much as they should have. But Green Day. Zomg. Immense.

It all started with the drunken bunny, which if you have been to a Green Day gig before, you will know always happens. The crowd got way excited, he started doing the YMCA…we joined in. All good fun. Then along came Green Day. They were perfect in every way. Guys, I honestly cannot express how fantastic the show was. The new stuff went down well, the old stuff even better. The crowd participation was awesome, loads of clapping, hands in the air, singing along, “Hey….ooooos” etc etc. Loads of people got brought up on stage. Firstly a man who had been there the night before,  Billie Joe recognised him and pulled him on stage. Then some kids who had to count down for the first of many fireworks. It was funny afterwards, Billie said “Now get the f*** off my stage you little circus freaks. Their hands feel like wet cabbage leaves.” He also did the water pistol thing, soaking the crowd and getting someone out of the crowd to do some more soaking. He fired t-shirts into the crowd too. He played the two sides of the crowd off against each other which was way fun. Personal favourite moment was King for a Day, with them all dressed up, Tre Cool in a lovely women’s hat and a bra, to which the crowd started singing “get your t**s out for the lads” and Green Day actually laughed out loud. Loved it! We were close enough to the front to feel the flames and I could see the whites of Billie Joe’s eyes.

The songs all sounded perfect. I can’t rant enough about how amazing it was!! Another favourite moment was when Billie Joe came out at the end and actually did some of Christie Road….from the Kerplunk album. I couldn’t have been happier! I love their older stuff!!

The only thing that annoyed me was the two man beasts who decided to stand in front of me. I’m only short and they had to actually push me out of the way to get there. One actually looked me straight in the eye, gave a sheepish shrug, acknowledging he knew I would not be able to see and stood in front of me. How annoying!!

I would put more of the photos up that my concert bud took, but wordpress is being ruuuubbish. Soz.

Yeah yeah, the clocks have gone back. The extra hour is all very well and good but when does an extra hour stop being an extra hour? I know for at least a week after the clocks go back I carry on saying that the time is actually an hour later than it is, despite all clocks saying otherwise. Like right now, it’s actually 22.38pm, not 21.38pm, and so I am tired. Anyway.

Two things Facebook has inspired me to quickly rant about. One, the new layout. It didn’t bother me. I barely noticed it. But I have noticed in the suggestions bit at the side, it keeps telling me to “reconnect” with certain people, and 90% of the time the person it chooses is Tony. This saddens me, I would love to “reconnect” with Tony but it ain’t happening. Damn you and your wicked ideas Facebook. The second thing is someone in my friends list became a fan of the game “heads down, thumbs up.” What an amazing game that was! I loved playing that in school! For those of you who don’t know what it is (although how could you not, it’s the best classroom game ever!) you sit with your head in your arms, eyes shut tight, with your thumbs pointing upwards in the air. There are a few people “on” and they each have to squeeze the thumb of a person. That person must then guess who it was who had squeezed their thumb. Lots of fun, non? There’s also a good group out on Facebook…”I’m liberal BECAUSE I’m Christian.” I like this. A lot. ‘Cos it’s true yeah.

Admittedly this is a late blog about the BBC programme that was on about 2 weeks ago. But it was darn good and I’m procrastinating.

Obviously coming from Coventry and having a geeky cool interest in history I already knew a fair amount about the blitz. Indeed, my Nan kept the newspapers from that time which I still have today. I also have my Grandad’s firemans’ badge from when he was a firefighter in the war. He would have fought fires in Coventry during the war, pretty cool. But what I didn’t know, what objective sources couldn’t show me, was how it affected the real people of Coventry. This programme did that. Eye witnesses from that night, the 14th November 1940 were interviewed and gave their stories. It was so emotional. A man who had been a police man recalled how he tried to help a woman find her husband, eventually finding him buried under some rubble. He cleared some of this rubble and pulled him out. Only the top half came. Another man recalled how he had been in an Anderson shelter, his father keeping an eye on things outside, a mine dropped and his father pressed himself to the doorway of the shelter to stop the blast from killing his family. He saved them, but was killed. A woman remembered when they found out the cathedral had been bombed, she began to cry. As she recalled cowering in her cellar her mind transported her back to that time, she began to shake and cry. It was heartbreaking to see. The real emotional impact of the war.

From an intellectual side, seeing the video footage from German aircraft and from the city was also heartbreaking. To see the city being bombed to ruins. But what was heartening was the spirit that came out of Coventry. First there was mass panic, of course there was. But everyone pulled through together. Production from the factories increased. How amazing. The RAF studied how the German bombers had planned and executed the attack and coined the term “coventrate” which is basically bombing a city to nothing. They did this on multiple German cities…”for Coventry.” I don’t agree with either bombing of course. Sadly that’s war.

This first one is general updating. Uni = well interesting this year! I looooove my subjects. However, I am knackered. My timetable is slightly punishing, but at least I’m enjoying it.

On Thursday I had my most stressful day yet. I had my supervision meeting for my dissertation. I was told it would be “interesting” to add a load of variables to my study (making my stats analysis hugely scary) and to submit my ethics form without her checking it as she would email the ethics man who happens to be her friend and try and push me to the front of the queue. I wish I could say it’s because I’m special or something, but it’s just because I’m using the lunar cycle in my testing which restricts when I can test so I need to be checked by ethics asap. But in order for me to be pushed to the front of the queue I needed to have it submitted by the following day, which was OK ‘cos I had most of it done already, BUT she decided that it would be best to withhold the info from the participants that I was looking at the lunar effect, which creates problems. The ethics committee are VERY strict about how you should treat your participants; psychology has gone from no ethics checks to over-scrupulous ones. So incase my participants feel particularly affected by my withholding that piece of info I had to demonstrate to the committee it would harm them in no way. Cue a loooong bit of ethics work. Tiring. But I did it.

Another thing happening on Thursday….well let me give you the background. At uni we have “advantage modules” which we have to take one of every year to help increase our employability. In the first year I did Spanish, last year work experience. This year I’m doing counselling skills. I got a phonecall during a lecture on Thursday from a Coventry number. I phoned it back of course and found that the advantage “team” wanted me to move my timetable around and change groups ‘cos they had over subscribed mine. Despite me being one of the first to sign up. Also despite the module woman saying to us in our first session it was important to remain in our groups so we felt comfortable and moving around was not advised. And also despite her telling one girl to leave ‘cos she was in another group but letting two others join despite them also moving from another group. So I promptly told them I was not able to move. I could have done without the worry.

Dissertation word count update: 50 words completed. 9,950 to go.

My timetable isn’t too bad. Apart from Wednesday….I have a lecture 6pm til 9pm. Who thought that one through?! Not only is the time horrendous, it happens to be the hardest module. My mind stops functioning at about 5pm. This was highlighted during said lecture yesterday, when I kept accidentally writing “does” instead of “dose” and finding it really quite hilarious. I don’t find it funny now of course. But it was about quarter to 8 and I’d been forcing myself to concentrate since 6 causing the rational part of my brain to melt.

We’ll ignore the fact it was over a week ago…

I went to Freshers’ Fair…..I know I’m not a Fresher but y’know, I do like free sweets. I got a good haul of stuff, most of which was useless. It included:

A swine flu stress pig – i.e. a pig that you squeeze when stressed with the pandemic number written on the back.

An energy drink called Boost Energy (I had about half before deciding I didn’t like the taste…then I drank some Pepsi forgetting about the caffiene content. Consequently I felt really quite odd for a while, then dead afterwards)

Some Pringles…but of an extra hot chilli flavour, they burnt my mouth.

Some Lynx deodrant stuff

Some after shaving gel

Some Impulse body spray

The obligitory tampons/condoms

Two pegs

Lollipops, toffees and loooooads of tiny Daim sweets (those were from the Ikea stall)

An apple

A Dominos pizza book of vouchers and a free slice of Dominos pizza

A voucher book with many vouchers in that I’ll never use

A pen

Not bad for half an hour at Freshers’ Fair.

Our new naughty puppy.