Nosebleed

Saturday I'm running wild,

All the lights are changing red to green,

Moving through the crowd I'm pushing,

Chemicals are rushing in my bloodstream ..

Today I had a nosebleed in my Core German class.

I feel my body deserves a medal for its timing, I mean it really went above and beyond.

It was just as we were going round the group to hear various responses to a presentation we'd just seen; the circle got to me and my nose conveniently started to bleed, meaning I got to skip the end of a fairly pointless seminar sneezing pintfuls of blood in the Parkinson Building toilets.

When that becomes an enjoyable alternative to education, you know you're ready to graduate.

If I could enhance this power, I could cut short all boring seminars by at least 20 minutes. If your nosebleed can be stopped with 2 minutes pinching and a quick dab here and there, then your nose is a fucking weakling.

If, or when, it reaches the point wherby I can summon nosebleeds at will, I'll be an unstoppable tour de force whenever I have lessons. The lecturer will look over in expectance of some valid contribution to our discussion, or wait for the answer to their question. And I'll calmly place my index finger firmly over one of my nostrils and go Mount St. Nosebleed all over the desk.

Noesbleed related success in future classes is paramount to the friends I'll probably lose as a result.

Y'all take it easy.

Chief

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend

Somewhere along in the bitterness,

And I would have stayed up with you all night,

Had I known how to save a life ..

Today I called someone "Chief".

This is a step up from 'mate', which I use for everything, from friends, strangers and inanimate objects round the house. It's also an improvement on 'boss', a word I picked up while working in the pub. That got used mostly for customers who seemed gruff and alcoholic, now I use it more often for helpful cashiers, gruff or not.

But chief?

Who calls people 'chief'?

It was in the garage down the road from my house. I bought a mobile top up voucher and a tasty drink, and I ended the transaction by saying "thanks chief" to the bloke behind the counter. And I kicked myself as I turned away, as I realised he was kind of asian-indian looking. Had I just nonchalantly insulted him by taking the Indian thing a step further? He either hadn't noticed or was too confused to call me on it.

Words like mate, boss and chief are a testament to my laziness. I see you, I know you, half of you I've known for the best part of four years, but I'm just too busy and too fucking lazy to call you by your name. I'm focusing on other, incredibly imprtant things. Too busy to think of your name, chief.

Anyway, how often do you use someone's name in a conversation anyway? Chief can be a way of mixing things up. Now you know.

And knowing is half the battle, chief.

Enthusiasm for dicks

Valley's deep and the mountains's so high,

If you want to see God you've got to move on the other side,

If you stand up there with your head in the clouds,

Don't try to fly, you know you might not come down ..

I feel that I've entered some sort of wormhole or some fortnight-long coma. Where has February gone? Last I checked it was about the 5th and I was struggling with a torrent of work. Then Rip van Dickhead suddenly looked up and realised it was the 23rd. This tends to happen every time at least three deadlines are all in the same week, its a bit like I've just got out of Shawshank and realised the world has become all fast and in a big hurry. Admittedly I'm a little more Red than I am Brooks.

More Shawshank references, anyone?

My French class was cancelled today, meaning a blissful 2 hours free and making dragging myself out of bed at half eleven somewhat redundant. I went up to the German department in my free period to talk to Ingrid, one of my module coordinators and had possibly one of the best, most awkward and most hilarious lecturer conversations of the last four years. Just to get it in some sort of context, my project for this module is based on the art of a bloke called Otto Dix, who I did a presentation on last week. Our conversation was as follows.

Me: "Ingrid, did you get my email with my presentation powerpoint and handout attached?"

Ingrid: "I did, thankyou very much. Did you get all my feedback?"

Me: "Yes, it was very helpful. I think it'll really help me focus the project a little more and make it a little less vague."

Ingrid: "Well, your presentation went very well, your enthusiasm for Dix really came through" (read this sentence out loud)

Silence.

Me: "My enthusiasm for Di .. oh, right. Yeah"

Ingrid: "I need to be more careful don't I? It can be a little tricky talking about Dix."

Me: "I'm uncomfortable"

The last line wasn't really there, but it was certainly running through my head. Both of us were laughing too much at this point to really form any kind of counterpoint, but when someone nonchalantly points out what they perceive to be your enthusiasm for dicks, there isn't really any going back.

We're seeing more of these presentations today actually. Without sounding like a twat, nobody really wants to sit and listen to other peoples presentations. If this module had an exam, it might be useful, but seeing as we've picked our own projects and done our own research, it seems a little redundant. I feel sorry for everyone who had to sit through mine and my overwhelming enthusiasm for dicks.

I start to zone out during presentations. They're never uninteresting, its just that stuff which isn't relevant to me doesn't exactly make me Curious George. This is occasionally the case in seminars, where I start to float away into a world of distraction, when all of a sudden I realise I've been asked a question. And I look up at the lecturer, the magic roundabout theme tune fizzles out, the monkey stops banging its cymbals, and I realise I've been listing my favourite cereals in the margin of my notepad in lieu of taking part in a discussion of the German Student Movement.

Other than the attention span, I am a wonderful student.

As an endnote, if anybody feels like using google to find this blog using the most obscure and interesting search terms possible, please do so. It'll break the monotony of people searching for Bioshock porn.

Donut

Like a bridge over troubled water,

I will ease your mind ..

Did you ever watch that film, The Passion of the Christ? Remember when Judas betrays Jesus (spoiler alert) and he's tormented by those demons, whcih are kinda like humans but with distorted and creepy exaggerated features? There's a guy in this computer cluster a little bit like that. I don't think he's a demon, but he still creeps me out.

I'm a little sad at uni today because the Krispy Kreme stall has gone from in front of the union. The last time it was here, I split a box of twelve with Emma which we ate during a screening of some German film. I walked by the stall the other day and was sorely tempted to buy some. They had all the good ones. One girl also at the stall was pointing them out to her friend.

"Oooh, thats the one with the chocolate icing and .. that stuff".

"Custard?"

"Yeah, with the custard in the middle"

[Me, inserting myself shrilly into the conversation] "They are NOT MEANT to have custard. DON'T eat the ones with custard centres."

I don't believe in custard donuts. YOU ARE A DONUT. You do not also need to be a puddding that's served in a bowl. We ask far too much of our food. Jam is good, or rather, that weird pseudo-jam which isn't like what you get in a jar but which is perfect for donuts. Seriously though, some of the latest Krispy Kreme designs, the icing to donut ratio is off the chart. Like a horse ate a tub of sprinkles and painstakingly shat each one.

What else has been happening recently?

I went to a house party. We found this guy, who nobody seemed to know. He passed out early on so we played pissed person Buckaroo (everybody won, essentially) and had a little photo shoot.

Yes We Dan

Don't stop, make it pop,

DJ blow my speakers up,

Tonight, I'mma fight

'Til we see the sunlight ..

What's that? You go to the university of Leeds? Great.

LUU Elections are just round the corner, so on that day, please give your vote to Daniel Brooks for Activites Officer. Can we improve our union?

The campaign don't start 'til he walks in.

And if you don't go to the University of Leeds, hell, come along on voting day and pretend you do.

Wrecking Ball Operator

And when you're out there, without care,

Yeah, I was out of touch,

But it wasn't because I didn't know enough,

I just knew too much ..

If my life goes to pot after university, I'd like to become one of those guys that knocks down buildings with a wrecking ball. I don't know if that even exists as a thing anymore; do they just blow it up with dynamite on each floor and collapse it 9/11 style, or take it apart piece by piece? Is there some kind of license involved, perhaps a permission slip?

I imagine there are classes. Like a driving test and theory test for cars, except instead of learning to indicate and brake properly, you're taught how to stop a building falling on you. If I ever make a great deal of money, I'll buy a wrecking ball, and some buildings, just to knock them down. I don't imagine there's anyone who wouldn't get at least a bit of a kick out of such an endeavour.

Maybe there are. There are probably people in the world who operate wrecking balls who are bored shitless of it. They spend long hours destroying buildings, pondering wistfully about playing Opus 10 by Chopin to a well dressed audience, or serving haute-cuisine in an up-market parisian restuarant. If only he knew there were people like me to which he could give his job.

That's pretty much all I have for you. I walked into town yesterday to deliver a hat and a pair of gloves to my sister for her to take home to my dad (sounds rather Dickensian in retrospect) and I stopped at McDonalds for the first time in ages. I had a big Mac. And I wasn't aware of this, but apparently big Mac's are now made out of cancer. The tastiest cancer there is, but fuck, my stomach was a wreck.

And walking back through Millenium square there was some sport playing on the big TV screen above the row of restaurants and bars, and the commentator said something to the effect of "whoever plays the best today and makes the fewest mistakes will win the game".

I don't know a great deal about sport, but I'm willing to bet that's some sharp analysis there.

More toilet etiquette and Imbolc

The camera won't let me go,

And the verdict doesn't love our soul,

The digital won't let me go ..

Saturday night was Imbolc, the Celtic festival of Spring. Armed with three 2 litre bottles of scrumpy cider, which for the record I could have refilled with my own piss and you wouldn't know the difference, I headed down to snowy snowy Marsden with Alex and Oli to get us some Pagan goodness. I maintain that one of the highlights of the night was our impromptu gathering of a motley crew of homeless people, broad yorkshiremen, football hooligans and some black guys to share our scrumpy with on the train back to town.

However, what I really took away from Imbolc is people's toilet etiquette. Or lack thereof. I lamented a few posts back about when people shut the bathroom door behind them when they leave, leading the next desperate person to hop around thinking its occupied. This example is more of a house thing, today's focuses more on public toilets. I'd like to take a minute to discuss this with you.

This one's for the guys. I think I've only ever used the women's toilet once, on an Otley Run, pissed as a fart in a homemade frog outfit. However, I am well versed in the protocol of the gents toilet.

Today we're gonna learn about urinal etiquette, following an experience at a pub at Imbolc. Let's imagine you're me, after a couple of pints. You need to pee something terrible. But, just as you're off to the loo, another bloke has the same idea as you. You go in first, hold the door for him, he follows. The cubicle is occupied. There are 3 empty urinals.

Let's approach this together, shall we. You both need to pee. There are three urinals. What do you do?

98% of men know the answer to this, instinctively. It's a base thing, like eating and breathing. If you're a guy, you will understand the etiquette involved: you keep at least one 'courtesy urinal' between you.

This is as much of a comfort thing than it is a practical thing. Maybe there's something in our subconscious thinking "this guy is gonna stare at/grab at my cock whilst I pee, so I'll keep him at a safe distance just to be sure".

If it's not that, then it's the old (but no less valid) worry of "this guy looks like one of those bizarre guys who nonchalantly looks up at the ceiling when he pees, ignoring his aim, whereby the piss splashback is maximised by the angle at which it hits the porcelain and I get a mini shower".

But, the bloke from the other night, who we'll call Sir Alan Sugar, was either unaware or unconcerned about such problems. I took the urinal on the left, fully expecting our hero to take the one on the far right, leaving a middle urinal buffer zone.

But no, Sir Alan takes the one in the middle, like an amateur.

And we pee together, shoulder to shoulder, while the guy in the cubicle farts to remind us that he's still there and we couldn't even have waited for him to finish in order to pee privately even if we'd wanted to.

I'd like to clarify, I have no real problem peeing next to somebody. I don't get stage fright, or my bladder doesn't pack up or anything like that. But I also believe that certain situations shouldn't have to be experienced by anyone, least of all anybody who may have been drunker than me and therefore more scared. This post is essentially an instruction. Pick the right urinal.

This was pretty much what was going through my head at the time. Sir Alan Sugar wasn't in my good books. And halfway through his pee, he coughed kind of loudly and distractingly. I took this as a means of conversation starter, so I took the only logical course of action: I grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and slamed him into the wall, like in Terminator.

That's a lie. No, I actually just turned to him and screamed "no talking!" and accidentally peed on his shoes in my moment of vitriol.

No, I actually just finished my wee and left. This post isn't to say that nothing interesting happened at Imbolc, but the fact that this remains one of the more memorable moments highlights the importance of weeing etiquette. Take note.