*sigh*

Creative title huh? Meh.

Days like today lead to nights like tonight...I'm fucking sick of it. I spend so much of my time assurin people things will get better for them, being there to tell them not to worry about the stuff that's got them done, to keep moving forward to keep soldiering on...and to their credit it does work out. Things get better and they are happy and content and that's great. Never think I'm not happy for someone when they succeed, you couldn't be more wrong if you thought I wasn't happy when I see a friend succeed at something! 

But then there's me. I've been out of uni and unemployed for what is fast approaching 11months.....nearly a whole fucking year!! What the hell man? I joked that if I got to being unemployed for a year then I need to seriously re-evaluate my life...looks like I should get an early start huh? The rate things are going I'm going to get stuck in that ever so delightful loop of "you need experience for this job" but I can't get the experience because no-one is willing to give it. Not even for free. Least not in my area. 

Then there's the whole "do you drive?" Question. What does it matter? I'm unemployed so I can't afford to drive even if I could drive. So how would that help exactly? 

I guess I fell victim to the trap of going to uni and coming out with a degree and thinking "shit yeah, here I come professional world!" But not realising that THAT is exactly what every other science graduate in my year is thinking. So now you've got what...20,000? New scientists all looking for work and maybe a handful of graduate roles available. Long odds huh? 

Hell I can't even apply for most internships because the pay is terrible and I shit you not I'm "over-qualified" but I'm too inexperienced to get a real job so here I am stuck in limbo....to skilled to get an internship and too fresh to get a job. What the hell am I supposed to do? (Wow I'm really throwing out the rhetorics today huh?) 

Yeah...anyone reading this is probably going to think "get over yourself" and to be honest yeah, I probably agree. But after a year, a whole fucking year, I'm just so fucking tired. I've got a degree that I'm still yet to utilise except when people ask me questions in conversation and I can give an answer...that's it. My degree has essentially given me the ability to create small talk.

Best 9 grand I ever spent. 

Stars above...

You know, I thought I was doing well? Ever since my ex broke up with me I've been trying my hardest to be more optimistic...and I thought I was doing a good job of that....guess I was wrong once again.

I'm just so fucking tired of trying so hard and getting nowhere. All I keep getting is shit from my parents like I'm not trying to find a job. Like I'm enjoying being sat around....yeah for the first month maybe it was fun....but after 12? Urgh...just wish I knew what to do...well I know what to do, but the how appears to be beyond my capacity at every turn.

Like I said. Days like today lead to nights like tonight where I'm finding it real hard to care about anything....there's only so many times you can get knocked back before beginning to wonder "why even bother?"

Whistler

So last time I said about how my new plan is to get my old job and save the money to learn to snowboard and head off to Whistler in Canada? Well that hasn't changed. It won't change. It can't change. 

I've had many different life ambitions over the years, I wanted to be a member of an F1 pit crew, a games designer, a CSI, a sniper and a whole host of other things as well...but the one thing that has never changed has been my desire to learn to snowboard. A couple years ago I made a post talking about a snowboarding game that came out called SSX, it was another instalment of the SSX snowboard series from EA and arguably one of the best games they have released recently. 

SSX was the spark of this life long ambition for a pretty meaningless skill that you can only use occasionally and in certain areas. It's something I've always wanted to do ever since I played the first one of those games when I was like 6 years old. Why? Because it looks cool. That's literally the reason. Yeah it might be dangerous but it looks so cool! You get to spend all day playing in the snow up a mountain surrounded by breath taking views! What's not to love?

I don't really know why I'm writing this to be honest. No-one reads this, I don't publish it anywhere. My dream is still to learn to snowboard but I would still like to get into medical research or something along those lines while I'm waiting to have the money saved up. That's what it comes down to. Why haven't you done it yet? Because I haven't been able to afford it. Why aren't I doing it now? Because I still can't afford it. 

Rest assured the whole none of you that read this, I WILL do this, it's not an IF, it's a WHEN. I may not be off doing all these crazy adventurous things just yet, but I will be doing it just as soon as I can afford it. Just watch. I may not become important or well known but I'm determined to ride the Great Wall, see the northern lights, climb a mountain and a whole bunch of other stuff I've been waiting for the means to go out and do. There's a time and a place or everything. You just gotta wait for the right one.

Not all of them are big things, some are quite mundane, like meeting my favourite authors, learning to whistle properly (this one is actually getting somewhere) and being able to run a mile and a half in less than 10minutes. It's a simple goal and again I'm getting there, currently my best time is 12mins or something similar but it's been a couple months so I need to get back into practice.

I also need to visit New Zealand to see the sets for Lord of the Rings...don't let me forget that one.

Oh yeah, I also got shortlisted for an interview at a hospital in lincoln. That's pretty awesome and hopefully what I need to start off my adventures. I'm not saying I'm gunna be the next Bilbo Baggins, but I certainly plan on going on an adventure soon!

6 Months

Okay. Here's the plan. 6 months and I'm out of here. Raise the money working a shitty job to go to Canada and learn to snowboard/get my instructors qualifications. Spend the ski season out on the slopes. 

Step 1. Get old shitty job back.

Step 2. Use the "1-Day Learning to Snowboard" voucher the ex got me (yeah, me and Jess broke up. It sucks, I'm dealing with it. I think.)

Step 3. Save the money so that I can leave when I want to.

Step 4. Attend the two weddings I'm meant to be here in the UK for. 

Step 5. Get the hell out of here and start to learn Whistler Mountain like the first 151 pokemon.

Sound good? I mean hell, it's not like I've got any huge reasons to stick around here. Family are family no matter where I am in the world and keeping in touch with friends is a breeze thanks to facebook, skype and international call packages.

Beginning to think I'm losing it...

Yeah it's been a while since I've been here, hell I doubt anyone even reads this anymore anyway...not that I'm bothered really. I'm not writing this for it to be read, I'm writing this to get it out of my head, maybe seeing it written (well, typed if you wanna get technical) out then hopefully it'll stop me from completely losing my mind.

It's been 5 months now since I left University, been 2 months since I graduated from said University, and I'm still no closer to being employed anywhere in anything close to what I want to be doing. I had an interview for a job a week or so ago but it wasn't what was advertised and I wouldn't get to do what I want to be doing so I turned it down. I'm beginning to think it was a bad idea....but there's no point in doing something you don't want to be doing right? And they didn't want someone there who didn't plan on being there long so surely it wasn't that bad an idea, was it? I don't know, but hey you can't go through life looking back on every decision and dwelling on the what ifs, it's not healthy...I'm a living testament to that right now....

They say "beggars can't be choosers" (don't ask me who, pretty much everyone knows that one) and yeah they're probably right but I'm not looking to get myself sucked into some dead end job...I'm looking to build a career you know? Everyone keeps telling me to find a job to tide me over until I find something I want to be doing but I'm pretty sure I've exhausted my window of opportunity with the one job I actually did have for taking me back. I'm thinking "If I go back now, they'll think I've failed and am only coming back as a last resort." which although technically true they wouldn't appreciate that. It wouldn't be fair on them or me. "But Spud! Life isn't fair!" Yeah, I guess not but I don't wanna have to do something I don't want to be doing and didn't enjoy. Plus if I was able to go back there then there's always the fear that I won't be motivated to find something else...I know me, I'm like that. 

Right now I just feel like I've let everyone down, I came out of Uni expecting to be able to find something in my field in the place I want to be and so far all I've gotten has been two interviews for jobs that didn't turn out to be what I wanted them to be. Now I'm sat here sending out application after application trying hard just to get my foot in the door with absolutely no success! It's demoralising to say the least...and that's not even mentioning the rejection emails, when they even think to email you at all! There's only so many times you can open an email and read "We're sorry to inform you...." before you start thinking "What's the point?". I know I'm not an optimistic person, never have been, but I'm pretty hard to knock down...right now I'm down and I'm not even sure where to start pulling myself back up...go to Uni they said...

And that's only half of whats going on up in this mess of a head of mine, the other half I really can't write down as that might actually get read and get me further up a certain creek than I'd like without any form of buoyancy than I'd like...

AND I've got a spare gig ticket for a band I've been dying to see for ages but no one to go with, which is a pretty small thing in comparison to everything but it's not exactly helping.

Anyone reading this is probably sat there thinking "Jesus Christ man, lighten up!" and you're right, I need to stop looking at the negatives and start focusing on the positives in my life....just wish that list wasn't so fucking small....hey ho, it'll all work out in the end right? 

Time to think...

Yeah I know it's been like 8 months since I posted, who gives a shit? I doubt anyone even reads this anymore. 

I finished Uni 4 months ago and it's left me with way too much time trapped inside my own head. Too much time to think about everything I've done, everything that's gone wrong and what my future now holds...the worst part? After four months of nothing but thinking I've learned 3 things; 1. You are never not thinking about something, there's always a thought in your head. 2. I'm terrified of what happens now, and 3 (which is kinda the same as 2). I have absolutely no idea where I want to go, what I want to end up doing...where I plan to go with my life...and that scares me for a whole host of reasons....

First off, I see all these people from my year that have left uni and gone straight into something, knowing exactly what they want to do, where they want to be and I can't help but think "Should I be the same?" I mean it's not like I'm not trying to find work, I am but so far the only luck I've had is a call centre selling solar panels and a company up in Lincoln that shortlisted me for interview and then turned me down before I even had an interview. So as we can see things are going great there. Then I'm sat here thinking "why don't I know what I want to do? What could I do? What do I want to do?" And I can't seem to answer any of those questions...except part of the last one. 

I want to help people, I'm always trying to help people, I like to think I'm good at it and that I always put other people before myself. But what can I do to help people? I'm trying to find work in hospital labs doing whatever technician work they have but I'm having no luck at all. That would be helping people wouldn't it? Running tests and stuff? I'm not exactly a people person after all, hardly suited for dealing with people directly, but I could at least help find out what's wrong. Of course I've always been interested in renewable energy, so I'd love to get into maybe R&D for that but I'm not an engineer, not a material scientist, so again I'd be doing testing for stuff, which I'm happy with, it's just impossible to find the work...

Slowly this whole unemployment thing is driving me insane. It's giving me way too much time to think about everything, who I am, what am I going to do and all the other stuff that's happened to me recently...let's just say that right now my hea isn't the place I want to be but so far all my attempts to do something about it have failed horribly. I'm feeling pretty shitty right now...

I've always had an interest in snowboarding (mentioned that before) so I was give the idea of maybe making something of that, which is all well and good but I need the money to get out there and learn and take an instructors course. Something that we've seen is pretty damned hard to do at the moment...

I don't know, like I've said, right now I'm in a bad way and nothing seems to be getting any easier. Job applications being ignored left, right and centre meaning I've got nothing to bring me out of my head, leaving me to stew in my thoughts...on te bright side though at least I've managed to catch up on all the TV I had to watch...that's something right..?

I didn't forget! Promise!

I was very tired yesterday from a weekend of playing ultimate and so I couldn't be bothered to write a post. Today I've been pretty busy working on an assignment which is hopefully nearly done.

I got my new fish! I've always wanted to own a couple of goldfish and now I do! I named them Jones (as in Davey Jones) and Craggy. Craggy gets his name from someone's inability to spell the word "Kraken" (not naming names....Jess) and refering to it as the Craggon. I'll admit they sound kind of similar but still, she's not going to live that one down! Apparently goldfish can live for up to 25yrs with some decent care so that's going to be interesting to see how long they last. There is every chance that they won't survive the trip up to Lincoln on Saturday but here's hoping! I'd like to think I'm able to keep a pet fish alive for more than two weeks!

This weekend just gone was LSD Warm Up 2014! I was really looking forward to it but things had been pretty manic leading up to it. A few hiccups along the way lead to a very stressed out Spud and a probably quite annoyed Jess having to put up with me. Thankfully at the last minute everything came together and so the weekend could go ahead with some minor tweaks!

As always it was a great laugh and I really enjoyed myself! Got some good feedback from the other teams that attended! There were only a couple little injuries and things but nothing too major. One of the guys from Flyght Club managed to take a chunk out of his chin...not just like a cut but a proper chunk out of it. Few more ice packs and couple strains but all in all nothing to serious. I would have loved to have played for two teams all weekend but sadly didn't have time and if I'm honest, after seeing how some of the players from two teams were at the end of the weekend, I'm kinda glad I didn't! Jess was absolutely knackered after double teaming with Lincoln 1 and WULF. The ladies ended up iron-manning a few of their games as did Stage 2, Lincoln 1 and Lincoln A. I honestly don't know how they managed it, they all looked half dead by the end of it. I was knackered after just playing for one team, let alone two and iron-manning a good few of their matches! Although considering I didn't exactly do anything over Christmas I was expecting to be a little off my game. Can't wait to get back to Lincoln and start training again!

The ladies team really pulled together throughout the weekend and I think the only thing that really let them down was the fact that their average height as a team is about 5' 1". They played some great ultimate and it's awesome to see how much they improved individually as well as a team.

Lincoln 1 ended up winning the Spoon award which was lovingly, if not a little hastily, decorated by Jess the night before. Plate, also a night before project, was awarded to Stage 2 along with the Spirit Stick (thanks to Ally for that one!). 1, 2, Hammer! ended up taking home the winner's trophy after a pretty great final against RED.

We've received a couple tournament invites since the weekend which should be a good laugh if I'm able to make it to them! Things are probably going to get a little intense with work over the next month so maybe a break to play a tournament would be good...before I start to go crazy in the lab and start talking to myself....Got an exam on the 14th which I haven't even started preparations for so that should be interesting. Also got an assignment due on the 17th which should be even more fun! Hopefully though I'm nearly done with it so can put it to bed soon and focus on revision for the upcoming test, but we'll see...Witness statements have a nasty habit of seeming simple enough but when you get to work on them they turn out to be something cooked up by Lucifer himself.

There's not all that much to say for now really, things are starting to heat back up what with the approaching term. I've got a load of lab time coming up to run my Dissertation experiment....Nervous? Yeah kinda. I mean I've worked on my own project before but this is something different. It's going to be interesting to see how things pan out but we won't know until I get in there and get started. There's a chance my experiment turns up nothing interesting at all but who knows? Gotta give it a go!

Catch ya later folks

It's er....been awhile.....

The whole team from the Christmas Meal

First post in 4 weeks? Oops. In my defence, I've been busy! The last couple weeks have been hectic, literally not had time to sit down. You'd think that it being the first post for weeks that I'd have a lot to write about but I've pretty much forgotten what happened up til last week and I'm pretty sketchy on last week as well to be fair...Let's see what I can remember and we'll go from there!

Weekend at home! Wasn't really a weekend..more like a day and a half. The trip down was for the War & Peace Revival "Thank You" dinner. Basically all the people who have a part in running the show go down there and have a meal to say thanks and celebrate a job well done! It was a good laugh, a bit of a long night but worth the trip down.

The week following on from that was....painful. 6hrs of Forensic Toxicology coupled with an hour of Applied Forensic Analysis all on Monday. One helluva long day....Didn't leave much time to do pretty much anything after that. The rest of the week was pretty sparse which was pretty good considering the Monday we had! Spent a lot of the week not doing all that much. I should really have been getting some work on my Dissertation done...I'm getting there, slowly but surely I'm getting there! We had an all day lab practical on Friday which I've got to write an assignment on but I'll get around to that later, it's Christmas after all!

This happened...

That weekend the Lincoln Christmas Market was up and running which was amazing as always! I never get tired of walking around that place, you get to see some really cool stuff. I managed to pick up a Christmas present or two while I was there. Also tried a Kangaroo burger while there thanks to Jess. Don't get me wrong the burger tasted amazing but I'm not sure how comfortable I am with eating Skippy...

Then was time for possibly the busiest week of the term! I barely had time to breathe let alone do anything else. Another 6hr Tox marathon coupled with a trip to Hull and then another all day practical as well as the Frisbee Christmas Meal (I said I was busy). The trip to Hull was awesome! It was an indoor Varsity match setup with the Hulltimate guys. Varsity is an event held by a different Uni every year where all their teams get challenged by all the other nearby Unis. We sent three teams up there, First, Second and Mixed to play for the day. Only the First team game counted towards Varsity and what a game! The guys played amazingly well considering they were iron manning it and strolled away with a fantastic 10-5 win! Great way to kick off Varsity! Second team then came on to play another fantastic match with a 8-0 win! Mixed unfortunately lost, 4-2. We played hard but got unlucky in places. Still it was a great laugh and we all had a great day hanging with the Hulltimate guys.

Me and Jess from the meal....I wore a tie and everything.

The Christmas Meal was awesome! It's a very rare occasion that I suit up for an event (everyone knows I don't like wearing a suit) but I was told to dress smartly for once, so I did. Had a great night with the team as always! Good food in great company lead to a great time! Jess got a little annoyed at me for taking so long eating my cheesecake though...to be fair I was rubbing it in how good it was considering she's recently become lactose intolerant....it's a wonder how she put's up with me....

Last week was pretty hectic in the sense of catching up with folks from home really. This weekend gone however was amazing! Spent the weekend in Hampshire with Jess, meeting her folks and seeing the sights. It was a really great weekend, shame that it seemed to fly past so quickly. Took forever to get there and then once it was it was gone...Now I'm not going to see her for another 11 days and it's going to suck, but I'm sure we'll manage!

Now it's 2 days from Christmas and time for all those amazing Christmas movies! Hopefully it wont take me another month to make a new post, no promises though!

Merry Christmas folks!

Oh look, it's Monday!

Erm.....yeah....? I literally have nothing to really talk about this week. Well that's not entirely true but there's nothing I care to mention at this moment in time. You'll find out eventually but for now I'm saying nothing.....literally nothing. I'm very tempted to post a mostly blank post for the week but my adoring fans (ha!) might get mad.

I did go to see the new Thor movie last week, it was pretty awesome! Definitely better than the first one, not saying that the first one was bad ('cause it was awesome) but this one was definitely better. Set up for the next Thor movie as well as the 2nd Avengers movie brilliantly.

Watching Thor: The Dark World did remind me to catch up on the whole Marvel Agents of SHIELD series on TV. At first it seemed pretty lame. I was comparing it to the movies and expecting it to be on that kind of level which it's not, don't get me wrong it's good but it's not multimillion pound blockbuster movie good and I was a little stupid to expect it to be. After you stop thinking that it has to be as good as the Avengers movies then you get to realise that it's actually a pretty cool show. The characters are great and they keep referencing things that happen in the movies which is pretty cool. Like one of the episodes is set just after the events of Thor 2 which I think is great. Yeah it's to be expected since they're referring to something so closely related to the movies but I really like that they do it. They've also managed to capture a lot of the same humour that's in the movies, I'm not sure if that's because they have the same writers or what but it's great! I'll admit the show is a little slow to get going but once it does then it really does become quite addictive. It's quite a pain really because I've got about 4 different series to be watching at the moment, not to mention Game of Thrones when that comes back and a few others. I have no doubt that I'm wasting too much of my time watching TV than I should be but hey ho! I'm not about to change my ways anytime soon!

Nice and short this week huh? Ah well. Going home this weekend for a bit which should be cool. Hopefully they haven't decorated the house yet, if they have then I'm not gunna be happy. Although to be fair when I head home for Christmas properly then it probably will be....but I think I can handle that. It's gunna be mid December by the time I get there so it better be done by then!

Catch ya later folks

Pseudo-sleep

I had my first exam of my final year at Lincoln on Friday. It's done and dusted. Let's move on.

Everyone that knows me knows that I've developed some kind of sleeping problem since getting to Uni and from what I can gather so have a lot of other people. This got me to thinking about what might be causing it...strangely enough this thought occurred to me at 2am this morning while talking to Lex.

We were talking and being awake at silly o'clock in the morning lead to both of us wondering why the other was still awake. Lex was working on his first essay in 3 years and I was totally failing at this whole sleeping thing. Anyways, Lex had recently spent the weekend off the radar, no phone or anything so that he could enjoy his weekend with his missus (understandable right?) and said that while he was there he could actually rest and sleep properly, it's only when he gets back here that sleeping becomes difficult and doesn't feel like proper sleep. This lead me to thinking, why? What is it that makes sleeping at Uni so different to sleeping at home? 

So, being the scientist that I am, cooked up a theory. When you're at home, you're away from Uni, a place all students associate with work and stress. They say Uni is the best time of your life, if not one of the most stressful. It's all deadlines and hard work weighing on your mind. As much as we try to ignore it, push it to the back burner, some part of our minds is always playing with that thought. Gently whispering in our ears that we should be working, or we're not working hard enough. That if we dedicated a little more time to something then we'd make it that much better. Normally I'm pretty good at the whole ignoring stress thing, being relaxed and taking most things in my stride but this year? This is the big one right? This year can make or break a career. This year is the one that we've all been working towards. Our dissertation year, the one project where we can dedicate all the skills and understanding to achieve one thing, no matter what that one thing is. This all adds up and becomes a massive weight on every third/final year's mind.

So when you're at home or away from Uni just trying to relax, it's easier to do it, because you're not here. You're away from that load on your mind, a place of rest and peace, something we all consider home to be. We're able to not just physically distance ourselves from the stress but it seems that with that distance it becomes easier to do it mentally too. We're able to put off all those things that the Whisper is trying to tell you to do as you're not at your place of work, you're at home, your place of rest. You're able to unwind and relax and rest peacefully.

During the day that Whispering thought isn't so much of a problem as our minds are more concerned with the day to day stuff and actually tackling that work load, so the Whisper is either drowned out or is being quiet because you're doing what it wants you to be doing. However as soon as night falls and your head hits the pillow and you're trying to empty your mind, relax into a gentle and resting sleep that the Whisper slowly creeps into your mind and begins to whisper again. This leads to a fake sleep, a pseudo-sleep, where you're not so much resting but just barely listening to the silent Whisper that tells you all the things you should be doing instead of wasting time resting. This pseudo-sleep gives the appearance of a deep and restful slumber but when you wake up you never feel all that refreshed. Instead you feel like you've barely rested at all. You wake up with a mental list of all the things you need to get done, want to get done and should get done. You get up and you start to cross things off of the list, you begin to tackle the workload. Slowly you begin to tackle the mental burden in an attempt to silence the Whisper and get a good nights sleep but somehow no matter what you get done throughout the day, that thought always comes back to pester you, prevent you from resting properly. 

Maybe it's just part of being a Uni student and once this is all over then we'll be able to sleep properly. Maybe once the stress of Uni is behind us we'll be able to put that Whisper behind us. Or maybe it's not stress related at all and some people are just not meant to sleep....who knows? Give me another 6 months and I'll be able to discount at least one of those theories. Going back to the original conversation, Lex said that he keeps a notepad next to his bed so that he can write down what's got to be done tomorrow so that "future Lex" can worry about it when he wakes up. It's an idea...not sure how it's working out for him but I might have to start giving it a go!

That's pretty much all I had to say about last week really. We had a couple teams away at tournaments so there was no training on and hardly anyone about. Both my housemates had gone away for the weekend so I was sat home alone revisiting old games I hadn't played in ages in an attempt to unwind and relax before starting my new modules this week. Forensic Toxicology  and Applied Forensic Analysis are both set to be a barrel of laughs, I'm sure. Ah well....


Catch ya later folks

Glad that's over

So last week I was freaking out over my assignment that I hadn't finished and was hating completely. It had gotten to the point that it was beginning to mess with my sleeping pattern. I'm not big on anthropology, it's not that I don't understand it or anything, I just don't find it interesting in the slightest. It's done, it's over so now I can forget about it. It's not going to be my greatest piece of work by any measure but hopefully it'll pass and I can focus on other things. Oh well.

Last week had some awesome moments that took the edge off a bit and made it a little easier to relax and focus on getting the assignment done. The Wednesday night social was a great laugh as always and judging by everyone's behaviour Thursday it was quite messy later on. So lived up to tradition really. Had a really good laugh, which I needed so it's all good!

Saturday was great too! Mr. and Mrs. Spud popped up to visit, first time I'd seen them in months so that was great. We went out and got lunch, did some shopping and caught up really. What sucked was that I wasn't feeling homesick at all really, then they left and that night it hit me! Was just laying on the sofa watching TV and thinking about home and all the things I missed. Probably didn't help that every song that seemed to come on my iTunes was a bit slow and thought provoking. Good job there iTunes! However something happened later that cheered me straight up. The Advert came on.

The Coca Cola Christmas advert has been the sign that Christmas is coming since forever. As soon as it comes on then it means I can start singing Christmas songs and of course, wearing my Santa Hat. I haven't seen the advert yet but as soon as I do the hat is coming out! It's a well known fact that Christmas is my favourite time of the year, 'cause the nights get longer and the weather turns colder and everything starts to feel all cozy. Already heard that it might start snowing soon which would be awesome! Of course the weather always says that and they're more often than not wrong and it starts snowing in January right through to late February/early March. Better late than never though right?

My good mood was slightly stunted after yesterday though. Not sure if I mentioned that I injured the tendon and ligaments in my right middle finger a while ago? Well I did and got told to keep up taking anti-inflammatories to let it heal. It had almost healed as well....then I went and caught a disc badly at training Sunday and boom! Back to where we started from. Barely able to grip anything or use my right hand. I'm having to one finger type with my right hand like a 10yr old again....strange how much of a difference it makes! Going to go out and get some surgical tape and bandages and tape it up. Hopefully immobilising it and taking Ibuprofen will help it heal quicker! I probably won't be back on form for Thursday's Superleague game but can only wait and see!

 Well thats it for now folks. Got an exam coming up at the end of the week which is going to be....fun....? 

Catch ya later

Regionals 2013 and One Pitch to Rule Them All!

Last week didn't get a post. I was feeling kinda down and didn't really feel like writing. I'll explain in a few moments...

Sam and Chris, the Dynamic Duo.

....now actually. We went to Regionals! I was originally meant to captain our second team and anyone who knows me knows I'm not much of a leader unless the time calls for it. I was however promoted to 1st team for the weekend...which I wasn't too sure how to feel about....I know I'm not the greatest player in the world but equally I'm not the worst. I'm sure I've mentioned how Lex describes me on pitch as "inconsistent" and that's probably the most accurate way to describe it. One minute I can be great and catch anything you decide to send my way, the next I'll drop the simplest discs ever thrown. So yeah, inconsistent. 1st team's usual members were a couple men down (1 being in Lativa and the other in Ireland) so to avoid iron manning it they pulled me from the ranks...must have thought I was good enough otherwise they wouldn't have picked me to go with them right? So I went to regionals on first team...really quite nervous since their level of play is...well a lot better than mine usually is...I went determined not to disappoint and hopefully I didn't...

Saturday we were doing really well (least I thought we were). I arrived slightly late due to a bit of a fuck up on my part booking the wrong ticket...this actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise since someone (...Lex) left Jack's bag at the train station when they left. So I had to phone the train station which if you've ever tried to phone a train station will know that it's not a straight forward process in the slightest. Managed to get them to find and store the bag for me until I got there to pick it up and hop on my train down to St. Albans. How we ended up in St. Albans for the Midlands Indoor Regional tournament I'll never understand...but hey ho! The rest of first team got there before me due to my cock up and Lex's saving grace and had to iron man the first game for about 5 minutes before I arrived thanks to Georgina picking me up from the station. From there I think we played quite well, I can't remember any of the scores but I don't remember feeling pissed off and disappointed at the end of the day...just tired and achy but that's the sign of a job well done right? That night, Lex, Jack, Lewis, Amy, Chris, Petey and I all crashed in the sports centre we'd been playing in all day....it lead to an uncomfortable nights sleep, especially since I like to sleep in near arctic conditions. We went to get dinner at a "nearby" KFC that turned out to be about 20/30mins walk away, mostly down a dark and creepy track off the college campus. It had been raining most of the day as well which meant the path was strewn with puddles which was annoying when you're wearing clean dry socks and canvas shoes....

Sunday morning we woke up groggy and bleary eyed thanks to the hard wood floor and some American bloke next to us having an intimate conversation with his missus into the early hours. We found out that we weren't playing in the same place as we woke up in and had to high tail it over to the other sports centre for our first game. We arrived well enough, except for some asshole yelling "Bus Wankers" at they drove past...southerners eh? We really needed to win our first game of the day, it was the 8th vs 15th cross over match...if we lost it we would have moved down to 15th and not had a shot at getting to Nationals. We lost. I can't help but feel more than a little responsible, I just didn't seem to be playing all that well at all. We all seemed a bit slow and off form for the first 10mins of the match allowing the Warwick Bears 2nd team to go 7-2 up...we started to bring it back in the last 10mins making it 7-5 on the final buzzer. The guys didn't say much when we walked off the pitch...what was there to say really? I admit I was the weakest member of the team there and then...and personally I felt fucking awful after that first match on the Sunday. Felt like I'd let not only the team down but also the club (cliche and melodramatic but true) since we were there to get to nationals and we didn't make it. It was a team effort and everything but that doesn't change the fact that I was the weakest player there and made more than my share of mistakes...just hope the guys don't think too badly of me for it...I did my best out there and I hope they know that. I felt honoured to be invited to join first team (along with nervous and scared for the reasons above) and I wanted to get us to Nationals as much as they did, why would I not? End of the day, we didn't make it and it's in the past now. Can only learn from my mistakes and hope not to repeat them...We went on to play 2 more matches that day and won them both, finishing 13th out of 32(?). Will said the last game of the day was the best he'd seen me play all weekend, I just replied with "Shame I couldn't do that earlier..." obviously feeling kinda down about the whole thing...

The week after regionals was just like any other week really, can't really remember anything outstanding or amazing happening. Stuff and things and junk. Worked on my assignment. Finished the main storyline on Darksiders II, was a little disappointed by the ending of it if I'm honest. The game was great, don't get me wrong. Just the ending seemed kinda rushed and a bit lack luster to me but that's a tale for another time. 

Lex and future Mrs. Lex (Ally)

Saturday, November 2nd was the first day of Lex's tournament hosted as an effort to raise funds for his upcoming wedding, entitled "One Pitch to Rule Them All". It was hilariously fun as Lincoln tournaments always are. Lex was stressing out in the lead up to it due to a few drop outs at the last minute lead to him fearing he'd have to cancel due to lack of teams. Luckily some teams came through and made it an awesome weekend. Being a fun tournament the pressure was far less intense than the weekend before, everyone being there just to play some ultimate, have a good laugh with some great company and if they take home a prize then all the better! I was demoted back to Lincoln 2 as joint Captain with Alana. Kinda glad for it really, don't get me wrong, I loved playing with the lads from 1st team the weekend before but I felt pretty bad after we lost that crucial game on the Sunday, so being back on 2nd was a load of my mind. We had a bit of a dynamic and shifting team for the weekend, starting with Louis, Lewis (Huey), Petey, Will Elliott, Mat Shaw, Alana and myself. Then ending the weekend without Petey or Will (he injured his ankle) but the addition of Brick, who had returned from playing in Women's regionals in Norwich on the Saturday. I can't remember details of the days which is bad considering it was yesterday and the day before....ah well. We fought hard against all the teams we played, having some really close games and some not so close games, but being a relatively short team we were at a bit of a disadvantage really. Still we ran hard and gave the rest of the teams a good fight. Played some good fun calls and generally had a great laugh all weekend. We ended up taking home the Spoon for finishing 7th. 

The only members of Lincoln 2 who could make the team photo

This weekend really made me think though, this is potentially my last year playing with the guys...that sucks...how the hell has the time gone so fast!? Best make the most of this year really! 

That's it for now folks, 

Catch ya later

Monday...? Again....? Didn't we have one of these last week?

So....I'm starting to run out of creative titles for posts...

Anyways, this post isn't going to have all that much to it. Last week wasn't exactly the norm but it had one main event and that was pretty much it. Start from the top? Why not...

We started the week with your average Monday, lectures and boredom aplenty. Tuesday however was....different to say the least. As you know I'm a forensic science student so of course we do mock crime scene practicals to show us what work in the field is like. I'm sure I've mentioned them once or twice. This year we are studying Anthropology (that's bones and stuffs for those who don't know) and one of our lecturer's has done a lot of work in Guatemala and other countries working on mass graves. Meaning that we'd naturally have to investigate a mock mass grave scenario. It was your standard out door crime scene scenario just with lots of (fake) bones scattered about the place. Sam, Ant and Sarah formed the team, me playing photographer as always, Ant as CSM leaving Sam and Sarah to dig up stuffs. There's not really all that much to say about this part of the day. We dug stuff out of the ground, laid them out and then documented what we had found. Then we broke for lunch. Lunch is good.

Now comes the disgustingly fun part. Dead pigs! Yeah, you read that right. Dead pigs. To simulate a decomposing body we used pigs. They're dead, they decompose the same way a human corpse does so this one's actually pretty accurate....aside from the fact they're pigs...but shhhhhhhh. Practical being on Tuesday was a blessing really, we got to investigate the pigs to collect maggots and flies and the like when they were still relatively fresh. The smell wasn't all that bad actually which was quite disappointing if I'm honest. I mean I was expecting it be like a wall of smell but it really wasn't that bad. Probably helped by the fact that it was outdoors so the smell dissipated and was really quite bearable. Don't get me wrong is wasn't pleasant but it wasn't all that bad. If anything, visually they were a lot worse. One pig was in the bloat stage of decay and had swollen to the point that it looked like it would explode and coat everyone in horrible pig bits and stuff if you so much sneezed at it. Another one was producing some kind of weird yellow foam, I don't want to know how or why (which I probably should....) but it was there and it was disgusting. They were all laying in a horrible brown pool of stuff (three guesses what "stuff") and all of them were covered in writhing masses of maggots. They all had flies buzzing around them which we had to try and capture and recover so that we could investigate what they were to determine how long they had been there. This proved almost comically difficult to do. At one stage there were three of us all stood around trying to catch one damned fly....in the end? The fly pretty much caught itself by landing on a net and staying there while we caught it. I kinda think it felt bad for us and decided to let us have it....little did it know that we were going to kill it by gassing it so we could examine it with a microscope. Poor bastard...

Aside from that? The week has been fairly standard really. I went to the doctor's to find out what's wrong with my finger, turns out I have some minor tendon and ligament damage. The doctor suggested that I rest it and take anti-inflammatories for a month...regionals are this weekend coming...that's really not going to happen. Maybe afterwards? Still no. Lex has a tournament on in Lincoln, be rude not to play that! The week after that I'll start resting it. Should be back to fighting fit in no time!

That's pretty much it for now folks. Hopefully next week's post will be full of tales of victory from regionals!

Catch ya later folks

The old stomping ground.

Anyone remember me talking about Sheffield beginners? Nah probably not, was before I started writing this so it might not have come up...a brief summary goes like this:

Sheffield beginners tournament. I went in my first year at Uni, we played some awesome frisbee all weekend and it got me hooked on playing ultimate! Absolutely fantastic time out there, learnt a lot and had a helluvalot of fun!

We didn't enter a team last year for reasons I either don't know or don't remember (one and the same really...). This year however we did. It was a bit touch and go as to whether or not we'd be going as two/three days before the tournament we didn't have enough beginners willing to attend. Luckily by Thursday night we had enough people say "Yeah I'll definitely be there!" And so we went. This time the freshers didn't have to Iron-Man the weekend the lucky buggers.

We got the train down on the Saturday morning and I spent most of the journey either telling stories or explaining things about how the game works and how the weekend is going to run...pretty sure everyone was getting sick of hearing my voice, but if someone asks me a question I can barely ignore them can I? Anyways we arrived in Sheffield, got changed and played our first game of the weekend. We were against Liverpool and managed to bring home a 10 - 0 win. Some might say it was luck and they might be right but judging by how the rest of the weekend went we had a team of naturals with us. We may have gotten a little too relaxed after that match as our first of two games against Huddersfield was an incredibly tough game! They really made us work. For a team of all beginners, their most experienced players having played 1 match previously before summer an another who had only played for about a year, they were fantastic! They put up a brilliant fight and our freshers rose to the challenge quickly and matched them fantastically! We came out of that match with a 3-3 win, someone, possibly Chris, scoring the Hail Mary equaliser at the end of the match. As a team of pretty much all beginners they have massive potential! We seemed to bond quite well with them over the weekend and hopefully we'll be seeing them around more often! 

We then went on to play York, sadly York had suffered a number of drop outs and couldn't field a full beginners team.  Luckily the lovely folks at Sheffield Hallam donated some of their beginners to help them out as pick ups. Again we faced a really tough match as to be expected from York. I can't remember the shoreline but I know we won the match and had a nice friendly chat with York afterwards as always. Before the match though we were warming up and one if our freshers, Melissa, was demonstrating how her forehand is a lot stonger than her back hand and subsequently nearly killed one of the York players by hitting them in the back of the head. This prompted us to call her Brick. If you've seen anchorman you'll understand why. 

Our last game of the day was against Aberystwyth and was another hard fought and close match. We won this one and finished the day with 3 wins and 1 draw. We hit the showers and then headed off for a team dinner (minus the newly named Brick) before venturing over to where we were staying the night. Whilst in 'Spoons we discussed the first day and then came up with the beginners new frisbee names except Jamie, but we'll get to his later. Amanda became Triple D thanks to her last name, Sam became Sam-wise since he was sat next to the previously named Dildo Baggins by Petey and Co. Lewis became Huey/Newis (Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?) and Jamie was briefly called Scott because he looks like a Scott....this changed very quickly though.

We took two attempts to find our accommodation for the night, a local scout hall in the centre of town, where we prepared our beds for the night. I ended up teaching Sam-wise how to make a makeshift pillow out of all our jumpers and hoodies, after all we have to take care of the old guy. We got ready to head to the party and began our journey. We got lost and ended up in the wrong place but after some swift googling by our navigator Dan, ended up in the right place. Not that we were there long, a fire alarm interupted the evening and forced us all outside, this is where Jamie's nickname begins to form. Once outside in the dreary northern rain with Jamie, Samwise and Triple D we formed our little group and stood talking. Jamie was quickly approached by two girls who said "You look cold, come stand with us." and dragged Jamie off. We informed Tom and Dan when they arrived and leaving Tom to make sure Jamie didn't get hurt we took the chance to go to bed. 

Jamie turned up again the next morning at 10.40 at the sports centre after spending the night with Gabby, leading to us dubbing him Gabby! 

We began our day by facing off against the lads from Huddersfield once again in the battle for 4th place. Another hard fought and tight match left us all breathing hard and when the match ended 7-3(?) to us we breathed a heavy sigh of relief. The change in the level of their play and ours between the two days was astounding, we got lucky they made some unfortunate drops otherwise things would have been a lot closer!

Our second match of the day was against 1st - Sheffield Hallam A. We knew they were going to be a tough team having seen them play on Saturday, so went into the match expecting to be fiercely challenged. True to form they didn't disappoint, they came at us hard and fast but our freshers came out and matched them holding then off for a long 12minute point. Our attack was as strong as their defence and vice versa. We had some unlucky drops as did they but ultimately (pun slightly intended) they came away with a 5-2 win.

Our last game of the weekend was the battle for 3rd against Hallam B, another strong team that gave as good as they got and I think the exertions of the weekend had finally started to take their toll, leading to them being able to pull away and take the win.

We started the weekend 14th out of 16 beginners teams and ended up walking away 4th! An absolutely fantastic achievement in my opinion and I couldn't be more proud of the freshers! They performed fantastically and only got better as the weekend went on. Sam, Chris and Lewis were making incredible interceptions throughout the tournament, Melissa and Jamie were pulling off awesome passes with Amanda always managing to find the perfect space just when it's needed. As a team they played together brilliantly from the get go and only seemed to get better! They gave it their all out there and hopefully they're as proud of themselves as we are!

I've got an all day practical tomorrow that's going to be a regular laugh riot. Considering I don't enjoy either Anthropology or Entomology, it's set to be a good day.

Catch ya later folks

Back into the swing of things

Well last week was the first week of lectures and it's good to be back in the swing of things.

I had my first dissertation meeting on Thursday and have got quite a few ideas to play with and develop, hopefully come up with something pretty interesting to investigate. Sadly I won't be getting to investigate ballistic damage on clothing fibres but hey ho. Guess I'll just have to come up with something else. I've also written the first 200 words of my introduction too. Not sure if they're any good but I'll probably end up going back and rewriting them a couple times but that's the nature of the work.

Been a pretty awesome week with the Frisbee family, we've got a lot of new members who seem really quite interested in joining properly and carrying on with it! We've also got a couple beginners tournaments coming up, the first of which is this coming weekend in Sheffield. I'm going to be co-captaining the team with Dan and Tomo when we get there which should be awesome! Beginners tournaments are always a lot of fun and you learn a helluva lot from them. I'm really quite looking forward to going back there for this one! We've also got Manchester coming up next weekend, for which we're returning champions. Then the weekend after that we've got Regionals! It's looking to be a busy month for us but hopefully it'll be an awesome one! Really looking forward to it! Hopefully my hand heals up before Sheffield, it's mostly healed now so it should be good to play in time! As for Regionals who knows? Can always hope I make it on one of the teams but if not then I'm not surprised, I've hardly been on top form so far this season.

This morning was a bastard. Not sure if anyone has read my post from a couple months back about the hell that is Sleep Paralysis, if not and you're interested then you might want to give it a read. I'm not going to re-iterate everything I said in that post but I nearly forgot how terrifying it is to wake up unable to move or shout. This time was one of the more vivid and intense ones...I could have sworn I felt a hand on my shoulder and hear a voice in my ear. I can't remember what I heard but it scared the living hell out of me...I also distinctly remember a heavy pressure near the base of my spine...The worst part though? Once I could move again I rolled over only to be woken up by another attack of it. The second one wasn't anywhere nearly as bad as the first but still...it's one of, if not the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. It's been so long since my last attack and I still have no idea what causes it...

Looks like I've got some more research to do later but for now I'm going to chill out and relax before my lecture. Then probably do some more Dissertation work when I get in.

Catch ya later folks

It happened again....

So, my friend Nat kept talking about a show called Supernatural to me. Saying I needed to watch it because it's awesome and that it's my kind of show.

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a fan of sci-fi/fantasy stuff and that my favourite book series is the Dresden Files. They're a series of books all about a wizard P.I. who lives in Chicago and fights all those things that go bump in the night. Solving normal crimes commuted by supernatural beings or means. I read the first 12 or 13 books in 3months...yeah they're that good. Fairly sure I've done a massive review of sorts before so I'm not going do it again now. 

Anyways, the series follows two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester. They are "hunters", they go around hunting and killing supernatural beings. Ranging from your run of the mill ghosts to demi-gods. So yeah, its right up my alley. I haven't quite done what I did when I started watching Castle or reading the Dresden Files with Supernatural, I haven't really been able to. I should have started watching them in the Summer instead of the start of September when I got back to Uni but meh, we live and learn after all. I can safely say I'm well and truly hooked now though. It has this nasty habit of running about 400 different overarching plotlines at once that all intermingle and lock together at the last possible moment, becoming an awesome blend of awesome. I like to think I'm pretty good at figuring out detective-y things, but there've been a couple blindsiding moments from these that have really thrown me off. One of the great things about it is having the two main characters as brothers, means there's a lot of hilarious banter between the two. That and there is a lot of humour in the show anyway not just from those two but you know. I'd love to say more but it'd ruin the plot and that's kinda the whole point to watching it. I'd definitely recommend watching it if you like the whole supernatural beings and stuff.

In other news it was fresher's week this week, meaning time to recruit some new faces to the frisbee family. Went to the sports fair and spent a good portion of the day handing out leaflets and talking to whoever went past and trying to convince them to join. We got a lot of interest and sign ups, that's not the most important part though. The most important part is that we got loads of people turn up to the taster session on Thursday! Quite a few of them seemed really interested in joining and quite a few turned up to Saturday's training session as well! Hopefully most of them will decide to join properly and attend regularly but we'll have to wait and see really.

Aside from that? It's pretty quiet around here. Lectures started again today....I'd forgotten a) how boring they are and b) how warm lecture theatres get! We found out that we're going to be doing just one module for the next 7weeks.....and that module is anthropology.....yay.....

The next 7 weeks are going to draaaaaaaaagggggggggg.....

Catch ya later folks

In fact I don't wanna know...

So I recently bought GTA V, which for anyone who doesn't know the GTA series of games are known for their free roaming open worlds and the ability to do whatever you like. They are massively violent games, you can try to be a law abiding citizen but in Liberty City or San Andreas or wherever else, that never lasts long. A quiet drive along the beach can quickly and easily turn into a massacre and you running for your life from the quickly escalating police force. They have been the source for a lot of video game violence and it's effect on kids debates because of their inherently violent nature.

Most people know that the first thing you do when you buy a new game is play it to death, logging hour after hour on it and blitzing the campaign in the first few days. No doubt there are people doing it now or already have and are playing it through a second time, but I'm not one of them. It's not that I'm not enjoying the game or that I don't have the patience to dedicate time to it so things can start hitting up...it's just for me there's too much to do. Don't get me wrong I hate it when there's a game that has little to nothing to it, you feel as though you're just getting started and then it's over. I like my games to have longevity or replay value, but when it comes to this I don't know....it just seems like in a world where you can do almost anything you like, I struggle to find something to do. There's no clear purpose or reason for anything you do.

I can pick up a game like Legend of Zelda where you're thrown from dungeon to dungeon fighting monster after monster and love it. I'll blast through the game then go back for more! But for some reason I don't seem to be as gripped by GTA V...I like knowing what my overall objective is, what I'm striving to achieve...I'm not sure what that says about my personality but hey...maybe I don't wanna know. I like exploration and finding new things but like I said, in GTA it just seems like there's a thousand things to do and no order to do them in. I think that's the thing that gets me the most...not knowing what I'm supposed to do or when to do it. Yeah in adventure/dungeon crawler games there's alot of exploration and open worlds but there's a semblance of order to things.

After playing it for a little bit more I've started to get into it alot more but it's still very much one of those games I can pick up and play very easily. It's not something I can stay up til 4am playing, you know?

Anyways, fresher's week starts this week. Means that Lincoln is going to start to feel alot more lively, especially at night. Lots of heavy drinking and loud music. Also means it's time to recruit some new members for the club. Hopefully we'll able to pull in a few fresh new faces to go to the beginners tournaments we've got lined up.

Aside from that there's not all that much else to say really. I watched The Big Lebowski for the first time this week. It was awesome! Such a great film! I can't believe I hadn't seen it before! Also introduced the housemates to Reservoir Dogs last night, something they'd never seen before. Ben said that there were a couple moments where he realised "So that's where that comes from...".

 Catch ya later folks

Who said Steam Punk was dead?

So nothing all that much has happened this week really, spent the most part of it recovering from the tournament. That being said I'm still not on full form due to having a stupid cold that won't leave me alone.

This guy wore this all day...

I did go round a mates on Thursday though to celebrate Alana winning her court case. I may have ended up getting a little bit drunk...was a good night though, ended up crashing on Lex's sofa again. Managed to avoid a hangover which is more than I can say for some of them, two bottles of champagne can have quite the effect in the morning!

Saturday however was a little different for me. One of my housemates said to me about it and then someone mentioned on Facebook about a Steam Punk fair going on in Lincoln. So I decided to find out what it was about (aside from the obvious) and discovered it'd be running all weekend up at the castle. Sine I hadn't been out for a play with my camera in a while I decided what the hell, it's not something you see everyday after all. I grabbed my camera and headed up there (I forgot how much of a bitch Steep Hill is...) to take some photos and see what was going on. The weather was pretty good compared to the past couple days of rain that we've had so that was a nice bonus. I also posted Dad's birthday present home to him (Happy Birthday) while I was there...I was meant to do it a couple days before but the envelope sat on my desk staring at me while I neglected to leave the house for a couple days.

Some pretty cool costumes

Anyways, I'm not too big on Steam Punk, I mean I know roughly what it's about but that's about it so I wasn't too sure what to expect. I got there and saw some pretty amazing costumes while there. Some people really put a lot of work into these things I mean this one guy was wearing what looked like a very heavy helmet and just wandering about. Some of the costumes were pretty bizarre for example saw one guy dressed as a blimp (the photo isn't that great so it's not on here)! Some of the other costumes though were actually pretty amazing and intricate, like the picture below, all the pipework and gauges and stuff on his jacket! How cool is that? I love the differing styles of clothing ranging from Victorian era to World War style flight uniforms and stuff.

This is the guy with the heavy looking helmet

 I think it's really quite interesting some of the designs for things people came up with. I saw a lot of people walking around with their take on a steam powered jet pack. No two designs were that similar, obviously they had the common features of having wings and being on peoples backs....but you know what I mean. I over heard one conversation, whilst I was milling about being a massive tourist, where a couple of people were discussing who designed their outfits or aspects of them at least. They kept referring to the designer as an "engineer" which I found quite interesting. Yeah that's not the most interesting thing anyone's ever heard but it's cool how these guys have developed a whole sub culture based around what could have happened if steam power stayed the height of technology.

One of the other things I'd noticed whilst walking around was the number of people carrying around what looked like steam powered weaponry. Some people had really put a lot of work into designing their weapons and others had simply stuck on some steam gauges and copper paint on some toy guns. I mean yeah it's fair enough not everyone has the kind of funds to dedicate to it as some people so at least you guys made the effort, but that doesn't detract from the fact that steam powered weaponry was abandoned for a reason.

These guys made me chuckle

Still I think it's pretty amazing the sheer amount of work people have put into this idea, it's definitely something I'd like to see more of. The fair wasn't exactly huge but there were a lot of people walking about.

I also took the opportunity while I was there to walk around the castle walls and see what I could. Annoyingly some large parts of the walls are under reconstruction work and inaccessible, meaning some of the awesome views around the place were unavailable. There's a particular one of the Cathedral that I wanted to photograph but that section of the wall was closed off. The rest of the way round really gave some breath taking views! From up there you could almost begin to see the curvature of the earth. Just wish I had Dad's super zoom lens with me to take advantage of it all. Ah well!

It feels good to have a couple photos back on this thing, my apologies for the massive lack of them!

Catch ya later folks

Pain.....lots of pain!

Apologies for the absence of last week's post, I was still moving in and tired and it sorta slipped my mind. My bad. I know this week's is late but I've been busy today and after the weekend I've had I'm absolutely knackered!

So this weekend was the weekend of Lads on Tournament....and what a weekend it was! I am practically dead after playing all weekend. First time I've done anything physically active since coming home for the summer and it has pretty much killed me. I've got all of the muscle aches under the sun. I've been looking forward to this weekend for a while now and for good reason. It was a fantastic warm up for the upcoming season and I'm sooooo glad I played. It showed me just how out of practice I've become over the summer and how badly I've let my fitness slip.

Originally I was just meant to be playing for Lincoln....however one of the open teams run by our Captain Jack 'Sparrow' had a bunch of last minute drop outs and so me, Will, Ian and Lex were picked up to play for them. I was also informed I was to be captain for Lincoln this weekend as Sparrow wasn't playing for us and Tomo wasn't present for the weekend. This instantly made me nervous as I'm a terrible leader, especially when playing with team-mates who have been playing for alot longer than me. I mean how can I call the play when the people I'm playing with know what I'm doing better than I do? So I was really only captain when sitting having the team talk with the other team...which would be fine but I generally have no idea what I'm talking about...I felt like I was just rambling for the most part but hey ho. I'm not sure what the other players thought about my performance as captain, hopefully I wasn't too bad.

I was also nervous about playing for two teams after so long of not doing anything, especially since the team I was playing pick up for was set up by Jack and one of his school friends. Now Jack used to play for a team called Stags, these kids came from a juniors school that teaches ultimate and are arguably one of the best teams I've seen. Jack and Andy (His mate) left the school and the team but decided to make their own team, named Stage 2. So I'm not sure how to feel about being asked to pick up...part of me was nervous as hell, scared that I'd fuck up and bring the team down and the other part of me was a little flattered that I got asked to play. I mean maybe I was just being asked to make up the numbers, or maybe they thought I was good enough to warrant the chance to play for them. I guess I'll never know but still I was scared I'd be a let down. I also didn't want to dedicate myself to playing for them as I was captain for Lincoln so I couldn't go balls out for Stage, they weren't my priority....the strange thing being....I think I actually played better for Stage than I did for Lincoln....

My performance as a player is far more important to me. I don't think I played my best frisbee by any means but it wasn't my worst...which I was expecting to after 3months of not handling a disc. The Saturday was very hit and miss. Had its ups and downs. Mostly downs if I'm honest. We had some awesome moments but also some horrible ones too, which I guess is mostly down to the rustiness of summer and re-adjusting to a new team line-up. There's always some time needed to adjust to a new line-up, learning how each person moves and behaves on pitch. After that I think things picked up and we started to feel alot more familiar with the players we were working with (Lincoln consisted of Me, Will, Cat, Chris, Matt, Alana and Jon. Stage 2 consisted of Me, Will, Andy, Jack, Alana, Ian and Lex). Towards the end of the day the lack of summer activity's effect on my fitness became quite apparent and I started to flag quite quickly. I mean hell, after my first match of the day I felt awful! I guess I was expecting myself to be able to explode out of the gates and hold the same pace all match long but that really....really didn't happen. After that though I seemed to be able to find my pace and the exertions didn't seem to be so bad.

I woke up into Sunday bleary eyed and full of muscle aches already from the day before. I can say that Sunday went a helluvalot better than Saturday. I think on Saturday I managed to score a couple points against BFG, a team who pride themselves on having an average height of 6ft something, which is probably my highlight of the day. Sunday was full of much better times, we won distinctly more games than the day before and we all seemed to be working better as a team (both Stage and Lincoln). The muscle aches were a little more pronounced after a nights sleep on them and playing again hurt for a bit until everything loosened back up and eased back into the familiar movements. That being said I'm in absolute agony right now....but still! We all seemed to be playing a damned sight better and hopefully my performance wasn't too disappointing throughout the day. The Lincoln/Danger game will stick in my head though for possibly one of the most intense games I've ever played! The scoreline was something like 6-3 to Danger by the end and holy hellfire was it a great game! We didn't have Chris for the match as he is one of the Danger lads but even still we gave them a helluva fight. Our defence really gave them something to work around and even though they ran us hard we scored a couple decent points against them (which is an achievement in itself) and stopped them from getting into double figures (which is another achievement). That in itself shows me that I must have improved at least a little bit from when I started, I mean yeah it wasn't all my effort and my teammates are far better than me so they deserve most of the credit, but surely I must have improved a bit to manage to help pull that off.

It got to the end of Sunday's play when I was literally a walking corpse. There was nothing left in the tank and only one game left to play for Stage 2 and I could relax I gave it what I had left. It was the spoon final against Smart Casuals (shortened to Smasuals- pronounced "Schmazles" in my head) and those guys and girls are some speedy little bastards. I mean hells bells did they work us hard. For our last game of the day they were amazingly energetic. They're always a fun team to play against and always a good laugh and a good match. If I'm honest, I've never been so happy to hear the final buzzer in a game before. I was almost asleep on my feet by the time that match ended. We had to iron man the match because Lex and Ian disappeared outside after their match with Lads on Tour just before Stage 2 went on and didn't come back in to sub for us. So we were dying upwards by the end of the match, after playing all weekend for two teams and the last 19min match without a sub we were practically dead. Me and Alana got outside not knowing who had actually won that match. As it turns out we did! Which surprised us both, I'm pretty sure we were behind in that match but I honestly couldn't tell you.

All in all this weekend was pretty awesome, knackering but awesome. A great way to kick of the new season and to get back into the swing of things. I just hope that the teams I played with were happy to have me and were pleased by my performance. I felt that on times I let them down and that I hadn't played my best but we all have our off moments right? Ah well, here's to the third and final year, let's hope it's a good one!

Catch ya later folks

Kick Ass!

So as always not much has happened this week. I worked and that's been it really.

Today though I went to see Kick Ass 2 with Lucy, Connor and Toby. It was a great movie, but it annoys me when they keep calling themselves superheroes. They are just vigilantes...none of them have special powers or anything, they are merely dudes with bats or other weapons. Other than that the film is great! It's funny and violent much like the first, but more over the top. To try and apply any sort of serious tone to the movie is a wasted effort. You really can't..the movie is stupid and crazy but it's entertaining and fun so who cares? I love how insane Hit Girl is as a character. She's mental. I mean it's to be expected given everything she's been through...her dad being some kind of serial killer vigilante who exposed her to that kind of thing regularly is going to leave some kind of permanent mental damage to her. Still I think she's probably the best character in the movie. Kick Ass is just shit, all he ever seems to do is get the crap kicked out of him. The biggest disappointment has to be the lack of Nic Cage. They could have incorporated a bunch of flashbacks with him being his crazy self and that would have been great.

I will say this though, the film has one very weird and messed up sub plot and it should probably be removed. Union J have no place in that movie.

Lets face it, we all love Nic Cage, he's great.

I'd like to write more about it but I can't think of anything to say really....I go back to Lincoln on Sunday which should be awesome. Can't wait to see the frisbee family again...kinda nervous about being team captain for Lads on Tournament but hopefully I'll be fine.

Catch ya later folks

Aaaaaaaaand it's Monday

Looks like it's that time of the week again. So it's Monday once more and I've got very little to say about the last week. I've been working hard and barely sleeping which has been....interesting. I'm looking forward to getting back to Lincoln where I can take it easier for a couple weeks before lectures start up again.

I have recently watched all of the first season of Avatar: Legend of Korra which prompted me to re-watch The Legend of Aang. I'd forgotten how much I loved that show. It's a shame kids today don't have any cartoons like it. It's hilarious and conveys some more serious points along the way as well. I must admit that it makes me wish I could control the elements to shoot fire from my hands or create tornadoes  with a sneeze but sadly that's not the case.

It makes me sad to see that there aren't any Saturday or Sunday morning cartoons anymore. I used to really look forward to watching Yu-Gi-Oh/Pokemon/Beyblades/Digimon/Avatar/Ninja Turtles and a whole load of other shows at the weekends. You'd wake up and run downstairs, park yourself in front of the TV for a couple of hours watching all the awesome cartoons. Yeah they were cartoons and people say they're childish but when I watch them, I don't care! I grew up watching them! I'd go so far as to say that they taught me some important life lessons. The differences between right and wrong, good and evil and not to trust anyone named Gary Oak.

Yeah they were shows designed for kids and maybe they are childish and immature but some of them had some deep and profound messages to give. Hell I can think of two obvious ones simply from Pokemon: The First Movie. Mewtwo and Meowth both have moments where they question life and why we do the things we do. It's a "kids" film for crying out loud! Most people still write them off as childish non-sense, so what the movie has a couple insightful moments, doesn't make it any more mature. The main character then proceeds to sacrifice himself. He throws himself between two of the most powerful beings to ever exist just to try to stop them fighting. What kind of kids film does that? And then they go on to create a whole load more movies and the TV series is still going! There were so many tear jerking moments in the first season of the series alone! And that's just one show!

Pokemon alone taught me a lot and that's not to mention the others. I could probably go on and on but then I'd sound like a right ass. I don't care if watching cartoons is seen as childish and immature, it makes me happy. They remind me of simpler times, when things weren't all so serious or important. They managed to teach a generation about life while making us laugh and joke along the way. Which when you come to think of it, isn't that what our parents have been teaching us all these years anyway? To work hard but also to have fun along the way?

Catch ya later folks