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Tuesday 2 September 2003
It turns out that the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) are paying my tuition fees next year and giving me a grant big enough to allow me to both I also now have a room in York. It's cheaper than I'd been antici-pating, has an ensuite bathroom (since I'm sharing a "flat" with five people, this will be most useful; although I shared a corridor with six in my first year at UKC, I was rarely in my room between 10pm and noon, so it posed no problem), and it's in the postgraduate-only hall of residence, which will probably mean a lower quotient of being kept awake at night by drunken people going "ARRRR!" and fire alarms than if I was in a "mixed" hall. Unfortunately, term starts a week later than I was led to believe. I'm going to Canterbury on 21st to stay with Ibid and since I've already bought my train ticket, I can't stay there any longer than planned. Plus, I have a seven-hour-slot in which I'm permitted to move in. A seven-hour-slot when my parents will be in Sweden and my brother at university. I'll have to get the train, bringing the bare essentials with me, and my parents can bring the rest of my stuff two days later. The crazy thing is, I can't even get to the nearest station with the bare essentials, because it's about two footpathless miles away; I'll have to get a lift there. I have not done anything except play The Sims (I bought Hot Date in the end, but I think I'm over it now. Really) and read books about shipwrecks since I last wrote. (I cannot recommend "The Life Of Pi" more strongly.) Monday 8 September 2003 Ah, even better. Despite the fact that I can't move into my room in York until 4th October, it turns out my course starts on 29th September. Therefore, I'll have to rent a different room for a week. To make matters more fun, I have to move out of said room by 9.30 on 4th, but can't move into actual room until 11, so the only possessions I'll be able to have with me for a week are some I can carry in one load. Foreign students can hire bedding for a week. Can I? Oh no . . . And, despite making absolutely certain to send York my booking fee, they claim not to have received it. I sent them another cheque, but since I suspect this to be a clerical error on their part, this probably means I'm going to end up paying someone else's booking fee and landing beyond my overdraft limit through no fault of my own. (Well, I wouldn't be if I didn't spend so much money, but, you know!) They might have sent me an e-mail realising this was a mistake - but! My e-mail account appears to be not functioning properly! After 72 hours off the net, I only received four e-mails, including only one of my daily "visit The Hunger Site!" reminder messages. Even better, despite me telling Bryn that I'd be dahn saath between 21st and 26th September, he's booked himself a holiday in France between exactly these days. Tuesday 9 September 2003 Ack! Ze money eesa sleepping through my feengers like sand!
I have just spent:
I am about to spend:
I did earn £15 this morning, but this doesn't *quite* balance the expenditure. Still, am in good mood as the work involved USING FOX PRO!!! You see, a few years ago, when I worked for a computer company, I had to print course notes for a short course in using Fox Pro every now and again. But did I ever get to use Fox Pro? No, and I was always wondering what it was. But now, another lifelong dream has been fulfilled! And it was a rather funchie program too! O yoj! My Dad spent the morning trying to contact charities helping landmine victims, since he has started renting a warehouse whose previous owners left five hundred unwanted mismatched walking boots in it. Saturday 20 September 2003 Today, I went to Manchester. It was obviously National Blind People Take Trains Day, since I saw one woman with a guide dog in the toilets at Carlisle station, and another on the train. As the train approached its destination, I found that Manchester is really weird. Half the buildings look absolutely hideous and the other half look truly funchie. Stranger still, the two types alternate almost perfectly. In Carlisle, I had been feeling vastly uncomfortable in my all-black bikerchick clothing since there weren't even any standard greebos to be soon; the moment I reached Manchester, I felt vastly underdressed. Immediately I saw a couple in full PVC and while I was waiting (in the wrong place, of course) to meet Plushy (I'll stick with calling her "Plushy" since I always mentally think of her as "Mistress Of Plush" anyway, for no obvious reason: by the same token, my second favourite pub in Canterbury, The Hobgoblin, is The Hobbeth Of Gob in my head), a bloke in a red leather jacket came up to me and asked if I knew where the coach station was because he was trying to get to Nottingham to see Mortiis. Plushy showed me where Affleck's, a shop of alternativity, was, and also a shop selling New Rocks, weapons and stuff. She'd never been to the latter before, because she was always too tired after visiting Affleck's, but I wanted to go, because I suspected a friend of mine who was at UKC briefly worked there. She did indeed, and it turns out she's going to be visiting York on the same day as I arrive there. So, yay, I won't spend my first evening alone or sitting in posh bars with trendies! Plushy took my stuff to her house, since she didn't think there was a cloakroom at the place I was seeing Gary Numan. I went to Affleck's and found out what she meant when she said she was tired afterwards. Alternative shop? Alternative shopping centre more like! Fortunately (though this had more to do with fact that I couldn't carry much than a lack of funchie stuff), I only ended up buying twelve jelly bracelets. I spent a lot of time getting lost in the rain, rescued only telephonically by Plushy who had an A to Z. Eventually I reached the Grand Central pub, where I sat, killing the strangely large amount of time left before the gig by playing the, "Who are all these people whose numbers I've got stored on my phone anyway?" game. Fortunately, for some reason, I went back at the main screen, which displays the time, and, eep? My watch said I had over an hour before doors opened, while my phone said I only had twenty minutes. HARG! I'm lost in time! I thought, but I decided that my phone was right and my watch was playing up again, so I hurriedly made my way to the gig. I was most annoyed, because I reckoned, such is the devotion of Numanoids that there'd be a huge queue by the time I got there. Fortunately, it wasn't too bad, and I ended up in the sixth row with a good view. I met a bloke who'd just started university that day (bless!) and a couple who were about twice my age who told us about all the gigs they'd been to in the 80s. For the support act, I'd been expecting someone goth or someone metal. Instead, we got Nylon Pylon, who were really weird. They would have been heavy ollllld-soulllll type of indie, except they had all this electro stuff going on too. Twas good, though. Gary Numan himself . . . ahhhhh, for the first four songs there was this huge unshiftable idiotic smile on my face. I didn't think much rest of the performance though, compared to the one at Eurorock, though I suspect this has more to do with how I was feeling. I was hideously tired (being still jetlagged and full of the urge to go to bed at 8pm), my feet were killing me, I was dehydrated, I had cramps and my leggings were digging into my back and stomach. I headed further back towards the end, where I had a bit more space, and sat down for a song. Then I went to Rock World, where I met Plushy again and various friends of hers who all have livejournals! Twas of the coolness: there were four rooms (I was desperately spoilt for choice) and although the goth room wasn't quite darkwave/industrial enough for my current tastes, the music was pretty good. And in spite of only really knowing one person there, who I lost for most of the evening, I also felt a lot more at ease there than I have done at any club (or pub for that matter). People were dancing enthusiastically (which only happens at the end of the night at The Beercart), and they were mostly either dancing on their own or dancing in a loose circle that automatically included newcomers (not possible in The Beercart due to its size). Strangely, everyone was a lot more dressed down there than the various Affleck's customers. Afterwards, I stayed at Plushy's where I had all of four hours of sleep. Sunday 21 September 2003 I spent a pleasant morning speaking with Plushy and her maternal unit. Then Plushy and myself went to the station (since, strangely enough, she was catching a train to Nodnol an hour later than mine). The tram ride was interesting (honestly, what could be better than a statue of a cow painted in camouflage?) and in the HMV at the station, I bought the new Dimmu Borgir album since it came with a free CD of new rock music, which will probably be pants but at least I will be Informed. The train journey to Canterbury, however, was not good at all. Firstly, despite the fact that I reserved my seat thirteen days before I travelled, and you're supposed to be able to get a cheap seat if you book more than seven days in advance, there weren't any left on any of the trains going to Nodnol that day, so I had to pay a fortune for it. Then there's the fact that certain Virgin trains are good in that in these days, in each carriage there is a mixture of red and blue seats. This is most unsettling, but at least it keeps you awake and you don't miss your stop, right? However, Virgin trains are bad in that said seats are horrendously uncomfortable. I squirmed and sat on my hoodie and my jacket and crossed my legs, but nothing worked: one hour into the journey, I was longing to escape from the seat. Oh, I got my wish, all right. Two hours away from Nodnol, there was a points failure, so after a long hold up, we were told to get on a different train. There were no seats left at all on the other train! And it was ages before it left, and then it kept stopping and starting. So I had to spend three and a half hours standing up! Owwwwwww! Luckily, since it arrived more than two hours late I'm entitled to compensation. Good thing too, because, thanks to slow Nodnol-Canterbury trains, I didn't reach Canterbury until after 11, so I couldn't really expect Ibid to meet me as planned, and had to pay for a taxi to her new student house. (Which is huge and v. posh.) I was planning to visit the south for a few weekends in the coming year, but I'm not sure I'll bother now! Monday 22 September 2003 Ibid and I made the half-hour up-two-hills walk to campus early, so she could go to a medical centre appointment. After that, we were going to go into town, but Ibid had left the cheque she needed to send off at home, so we headed back to her house, then went townwards (another half hour trip). I was most annoyed because my main reason for my trip there was to get my watch fixed - and the watch fixing place was closed! We also got rained on, despite the beautiful weather Canterbury has been experiencing of late. The place hates me, I'm sure, for it knows I have abandoned it. I bought 24 more shagbands, the new Iron Maiden album and Ibid f00lishly took me to the display of "reduced to £1" books in Waterstone's. Obviously, most of these were of no interest to anyone, but us being us, I was unable to resist a study of modern girlhood and a true story of a gay bloke coming out at Woodstock, and Ibid purchased more volumes. Oh well, at least they were cheap. Also, since I don't have enough black tops that fit me, I agonised over The Indoor Market's selection of cheap long-sleeved small black t-shirts. The most visually appealing ones were Sum 41's and Cradle Of Filth's, but really, did I want to tell the world I like either of these bands? (I do like Sum 41, though not enormously, and although I couldn't get into Cradle Of Filth when I first listened to them three years ago, I suspect I might be able to now.) And if so, who would I prefer to show an appreciation for? In the end, I went for an Offspring one, since it looked quite cool, I quite like them, other people my age wear their shirts, and they're not horrendously controversial, despite the fact that two out of the three subcultures I identify with best (goths, classic metallers and extreme metallers) will disapprove. The woes of being a size eleven female who has a wide taste in music and already owns a Rammstein t-shirt! (Actually I have very narrow taste in music and only ever listen to Arch Enemy, unless I'm out somewhere. But you've got to wear something: I've had my fill of being stopped by the police, thank you.) Then we went back to Ibid's house (up a hill) and then we went to her first lecture. Well, I'd never been to a Social Anthropology lecture before, I wanted to know what it was like! It was not very interesting, but An Experience, nonetheless. Ibid then went home, only to return to campus for a film soc quiz, then go into town! Meanwhile, I stayed on campus for a bit (I was most distressed to discover Keynes Bar has been redesigned, so that it is very dark, most of the seats are hideously uncomfortable, and it's called, deliberately I presume, The K Bar! [K Bar! K Bar!]) then went to the Hobgoblin to meet various disgruntled Beercartians, for the Beercart is closed this week. (See what I mean about Canterbury hating me?) I had a good time, though, and met new peoples!
- a girl from the Canterbury goths mailing list
Then Ibid and I walked Ibidlandward yet again where I was kept awake by her housemates for many hours. I hold no grudge though, since my body has forgotten how to sleep, and I'm sure we were as bad three years ago, singing rude versions of Christmas carols at 2am. Tuesday 23 September 2003 Spent lots o today doing much-needed catching up with livejournal, then met up with Ibidium and Soppygittal. Soppygit needed to buy a textbook from the campus bookshop. Since the queue was about eight miles long, Ibid and I waited in the campus shop to look at bad magazines. Sadly, on the magazine rack, it said, "CCTV Installed", presumably in an attempt to get people to stop browsing. However, since I'm not going to be here for much longer and Ibid is the sort of person who has no qualms about committing minor crimes in shops (such as stealing bubble wrap and amusing signs), we read them anyway, and scared some girls by our looking at the evil "men's health" magazines. In the evening, Ibid and myself went to Anime soc, which was good, then went to The Venue for indie night, since Shed 7 were playing. I've seen them twice before and don't like them that much these days, but, you know, once-famous rock bands in Canterbury? Such a thing I must endorse! The support band - bearing in mind they were probably from UKC - were good. Shed 7 themselves were better than I'd ever seen them. They played my two favourite songs o theirs ("She Left Me On Friday" and "Disco Down") and some new stuff, which was mostly cool. What the DJ played was a bit dull (although I did hear my favourite Manic Street Preachers song, "Drug Drug Druggy", which I don't think I've ever heard at a club before) but ok, and the place has been redesigned over the summer so it looks like poo, but isn't claustrophobic anymore. The clientele this year, like last year, look horrifyingly "normal", but there were three Very Metal blokes who yelled, "METAAAAAL!" and made devil horns at me, Sleeve, Emma and a few others. I tried to make some back, but after three years as first lady, secretary and president of the rock society, my hands just don't like that position. Oh well. Not a bad night. Wednesday 24 September 2003 I went to another lecture of Ibid's, since she insisted. This one was, frighteningly, actually useful to me! The guy talked about loss of biodiversity and overgrazing (among other things!) which is exactly what I'm studying this year! From a Mathematical point of view, yes, but this gave me some useful statistics. It also made me feel all keen to spend my time and money saving the world, which will probably reduce my purchase and enyojment of stupid bumph! Huzzah! Afterwards, I met up with the vast majority of The Fellowship (with whom I spent most of last term) and ran into some other rockers. We found some pictures of clipart frogs on the jukebox in Rutherford - for no apparent reason - which we stole. After a trip back Ibidlandwards, I met up with one of my classmates from last year and we talked for many an hour. When Ibid and I got back to hers, we worked on Our Film. It is going to be over twelve hours long and The Best Thing Ever. We laughed a lot, especially over an insane televangelical song we penned.
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