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February 28 Bored againI hope you all enjoyed my last blog/list of complaints (those of you who survived all the way to the end that is).
Anyway, on Monday a friend posted the results to one of these 'Sound Track to your Life' quizs that go around myspace and stuff and have done for a long time. Seeing as Ive never really bothered with MySpace or anything I've managed to avoid them. However, I was feeling bored Monday night so quickly went through it using my itunes (as I was half way through a good play list on windows media player which I use most of the time) and got some results. But I thought they were crap so today after finishing on duty with St John and submitting some history course work I decided to try again. This is what happened:
Opening Credits: First Day At School: She Hates Me – Puddle of Mudd / If it's a fight with the person I just fell in love with them maybe, otherwise I would have expected something more. Breaking Up: Mental Breakdown: Driving: Final Battle: End Credits:
Go West – Pet Shop Boys / Bit odd. Overall not bad, a big improvement over my first attempt. Though I would like to bring back First it Giveth by Queens of the Stoneage for my Funeral Song, Search for the Hero by M People for Getting back together and Troll in the dark by Rhapsody from the End Credits from my original attempt.
QOTD: After all, they might be lying on the floor because they’re sleeping. Ask them a question (“Can you hear me?”) and give them a command (“Open your eyes”). Of course, they might be deaf, so shave them gently as well. February 25 Where'd my time go?Once again you managed to gain over a week's respite from my mutterings but I'm afraid I'm back now with a long list of things to talk/complain about.
Might as well start at the beginning although it's quite retrospective (and should really have been mentioned in my last blog). The week before last (the 14th to be specific) I was meant to be on a sports duty for St John once again however just after getting out of my Psychology lecture about 12.30 (30 minutes before it was due to start) I received a text from the duty manager to inform me that it'd been called off. This left me some what confused however as I hadn't seen any rain whilst I'd been awake so far that day and the ground around me only seemed slightly muddy. It then resulted in me thinking back to my old sporting days when I'd be out almost every Sunday (as well as Saturday training) playing football in the middle of a very exposed field. I remember one occasion especially when we carried on playing in a full blown storm, rain so heavy you could only just make out the opponents goal from my position in defence and wind strong enough to force the spectators to have to brace themselves firmly into the ground (or in some cases run off to find shelter). We even had the occasional thunder claps, only thing we were missing was lightening. However we kept playing until about 5 minutes before the end of the game when the other team (who we were beating quite badly at that time, a rare event for us) decided they'd had enough and asked the ref to call it off in the hopes of a replay (we however still got the full points for our victory). Now this was back when I was about 13 years old, and university sports are called off for a bit of mud? Some people really are just pathetic these days it seems.
Well that's one complaint down, lets move onto last week. To start off with Monday night the long threatened Duty Manager training for St John was given for me and three others. I understand fully that if I don't do this the unit's going to be in trouble next year but I was still a bit apprehensive about it. The training itself was fine, most painful part was the continuous randomly laughter from my fellow trainees which resulted in my head being face down on the desk for most of it. Since then I have then experienced being duty manager twice on duty. Firstly last Wednesday where two minutes into the womens' rugby game two of our team collided, eventually resulting in one of them requiring an ambulance off to hospital (it was the 'tank' of the girls' team colliding with one of their smallest players). Also got a suspected back injury from a regular, a guy asking for a sling and one other which I missed after take our regular back to the first aid room. This was then followed on Friday by my second experience of duty manager when nothing what so ever happened all evening (inspite of there being 5 of us Friday compared to 3 first aiders and an observe Wednesday).
Doubling back to Wednesday, after the duty I also had an opportunity to go to the cinema for the first time in a very long time to see Hot Fuzz. I had been looking forwards to seeing this movie since first seeing the trailer (and after seeing the cast list I couldn't see how it could go wrong) and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. The movie had everything, comedy, action, guns, knives, explosions, blood, a zombie like character and a brief zombie like scene. Another nice thing about the cinema trip was that quite a large group of us actually went, in the end there were about 12 of us even though we were slightly scattered due to the popularity of the film (which was to be expected) and I managed to get myself a half price ticket due to the fact that I'm now on an Orange contract for my mobile. One slight down side of it is that I can't quite work out if I want to join the police more or less having see it.
Right what else have I got to complain about? Ah, of course, lab reports. By 4pm on Friday I had to submit my 3rd psychology lab report, again a 3000 word limit and again I only got around 2500 words doing most of them in the last two days. I just can't do lab reports early for some reason. I can sit down, surrounded by notes and books but still only get a few hundred words done a day until the pressure is really on at the last minute and it's bloody annoying, in part because it also means that I have to limit my drinking.
Finally we move onto this weekend (which in itself has three items). First up, early mornings. I disagree with the principle of early mornings enough as it is but understand that it's necessary. But after leaving tesco back home I thought I could get back to waking up at a sensible time on the weekend. However this weekend I was asked to help set up the FAW course on Saturday (after finishing on duty at 2am that morning) and I also ended up going along today (Sunday) as well in case the other person needed a hand (for reasons that I'll move onto shortly). Both these days meant that I had to be up by 8am and it just doesn't seem natural to me, luckily I have no lessons tomorrow so I can have a nice lie-in to recover.
On the subject of the FAW it has been interesting to watch other people going through it (even if I have a nasty feeling that they're going through slightly faster my my group did) and it's a good opportunity to get to know all the new members of the society and spent a bit more time with the members that have been around a while. Its also good to see them instantly adapting to work together in groups which have even mixed over the two days showing that all of them are able to work together rather than forming sub-groups. Restores some hope for next year to me. Just need to wait until after their assessment next Sunday then get them out on duty getting some experience.
And the final item of this weekend (also the reason I thought the other person minding the FAW might need some support today) is my near dramatic rescue last night. About 9pm, right in the middle of Casualty, I got a message over msn from another member of St John telling me that he'd just received a text along the lines of 'X, Y is unconcious wot should I do? Z' (letters added in to protect individuals identities) and as he wasn't getting any further response from the mobile and I live just a short distance from them he asked me to head round to check what was happening. I quickly grab my keys then head out the door rushing over to the casualties flat seeing as I knew they had been wasted from around 19.45 at least and had also been informed of a heavy intake of pain killers. On the way I called one of the casualties flat mates so he could let me into the flat and give me a hand if I needed any further help, unfortunately he was only half way back to uni after going to tescos but luckily for me the flat door was open so I was able to get in there quickly and start knocking on the casualties door. After getting no response after about 2 minutes I headed back outside (largely to get some signal on my mobile) and called the guy that had asked me to check on them. It turns out that the text had just been a wind-up and as a result I had missed about 10 minutes of Casualty for no good reason. The casualty has since been apologising lots (as well as feeling quite ill due to amount of alcohol they consumed last night) but it's not going to bring back those 10 minutes of tv time I lost.
On another note it's nearly the end of the month so I'm also up dating my main site so go have a look.
QOTD: (none, a stolen comic instead)... February 16 SU ElectionsYesterday and Wednesday were the SU elections at Essex for the Saab (basically the top 5) positions as most who read this blog will know.
Personally I really couldn't have cared less about who successfully sold their soul to become part of the SU executive committee but seeing as I'm currently under threat of taking a certain position in St John next year which may involve having to meet with several of these people a few times I thought I should do it and but some form of thought into it (however I did cure myself of the shame of having voted by having a third of a bottle of red wine with my dinner).
Unfortunately in voting RON (re-open nominations) still did fairly well for me. Beating most nominees and even coming top in the running for vice-president sports and societies (one that I am pretty much guaranteed to have to see some time next year). Though to be fair we did have people marked down a neo-feminist, communist and student respect running for the position of President (for a laugh I looked at the student respect mainfesto, first line was a history of the Iraq war so I just closed it and put them bottom of my list of preferences).
Once I'd finished all this and the bottle of wine I thought it was over and I'd be safe. However I was sadly mistaken. About 8ish at a guess there was a heavy knocking at the door to my flat. I ignored it as always as my flat mates often have friends round (who don't seem capable of calling up my flatmates and my flatmates seem incapable of hearing even though I'm the furtherest from the door). About 8.30 I then left my room for a drink only to discover two people sitting on the stairs outside my flat waiting for someone to appear. Turns out they were just lackies of one of the groups that had gotten together to run (Super Students to be specific) who of course asked me if I'd voted, who I'd voted for and to whether my flat mates had voted. Being a kind hearted soul I claimed my flat was out but would encourage them to vote if I saw them in time then promptly shut the door (noting as I did that one of the two lackies when back to sitting on the stairs staking out my flat).
Finally 9 o'clock came when the polls closed and they were appearently announcing the results in the SU bar so I knew I was free from pestering (at least for a few weeks). On the subject of results though I heard that some how they managed to mess it up so by about 11.30 they still hadn't announced any results. How they messed up is completely beyond me seeing as all the voting was done on-line so the computers would have been able to give a result less than a second after the polls close. But then again its the SU and I need to learn to expect the stupid and idiotic.
As it happens I still haven't heard all the results. Just heard about two people from others who had there from others still. SU hasn't even bothered e-mailing round (which they did all of yesterday with a running count down. Another entertaining thing as I got the 1 hour warning 10 minutes after the polls closed.
QOTD: Max Stone - A leader needs funny catch phrases, like 'take it to the max' and 'monkey banana raffle'. February 08 What have I done now?!?Further busyness for me this week.
Following on my my rant about technology I just thought I'd update everyone that the AED did behave during my assessment and I ofcourse passed (the only known way to fail being to kill an inanimate doll) so should it ever become necessary I can now use a defibrillator on people.
In other news we had a semi-social at St John's by going to Cheezy Tunes on Tuesday(a legendary evening for the old timers and a damn good night even now it turns out). This time I remembered my camera and the next day I found 100 photos and videos (the blackmail material is good). Currently all of those photos can be accessed through the photo albums page on my main site and two are being used for a caption competition on our unit forums.
My final act was to then collect all the videos together on windows movie maker, stick in a couple of pictures to pad it out and cover it with some music and the result is below. In the words of one person featured it is "hilarious! Yet cringeworthy".
Enjoy...
Good news is that I'm not currently planning to take my camera to the full social next Tuesday. But my mind may change.
QOTD: Farnsworth: Doomsday device? Ah, now the ball's in Farnsworth's court! (platform rises from floor containing many doomsday devices) Farnsworth: I suppose I could part with one and still be feared. February 05 TechnologyWell I didn't get round to blogging anything last week (which I'm sure you're all greatful for) due to being busy with St John stuff. Three duties (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and there were about six injuries between all of them (three Wednesday and three Friday). Seeing as I'm not on duty at all this week I suspect that they'll be hundreds of injuries, or if only a few they'll actually be interesting treatable ones.
Anyway, today I went on the St John AED (Automated External Defibrillation) course and took on what could have potentially been the most troublesome piece of technology I have yet to meet. As I've explained in a previous blog me and technology (specifically computers but I try to spread my hate) have a deep, hate-hate relationship, often resulting in swearing and the occasional kick to get them to do my biding. Now the reason for my suspicion of problems is that unlike most other computers, this one talks back. It even has the audacity to try and give you instructions on what to do and when to do it. Personally I expected to find myself sitting there arguing with it for half an hour and giving it a quick kick whenever the trainer turned his back, however today it behaved. Accepted the pads as attached first time around, agreed that the inanimate dummy needed shocking and generally behaved itself. I'm sure that Wednesday went I get assessed it'll start singing a different tune just to mock me.
It was asked of me why I was going to take this course seeing as I feared technology. However I do not fear technology, I just hate it (with a few exceptions: The Borg, futuristic killer robots, robot/zombie hybrids [so basically the Borg again] and small robotic chickens that jump at you and bite you in the shins).
QOTD: Professor Farnsworth: This mission is incredibly dangerous. Someone's sure to be killed. Fry, Leela, Bender—
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