Songs

I'm crying and homesick so I thought I'd blog before I go to bed. I was watching BlogTV and Tom Milsom (http://www.youtube.com/hexachordal) and Eddplant (http://www.youtube.com/eddplant) were singing beautifully but they ended on three songs which made me blub like a little girl. Three songs that remind me of my family. They would have only needed to whack out a bit of Eminem and Rihanna to get the big 4 and send me into a spiral.

1. Time of Your Life - Green Day

I don't know why this reminds me of my mum, but it does. Its most likely the memories of us listening to it after I left high school and what a happy time in my life it was.

2. Book of Love - Peter Gabriel

I know this song from Scrubs - JD's last episode. And I always used to watch Scrubs with my dad on my free afternoons in college before he went back to work. So naturally my brain makes the link between this and my dad. Plus I blubbed like a baby at the last episode of Scrubs, so you know, classical conditioning.

3. Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's

I thought I was going to explode when I saw someone suggest this in the comments. This one reminds me of my brother. When I was doing my GCSE music in high school I sang this song for my practice performance exam in the December of my final year. My brother was supposed to play the guitar for it but he left because of serious bullying. This one made me cry the most. It always reminds me of Chris and of home and of a bad time in my life so I pretty much started crying the second the first two notes were played on the guitar.

This isn't particularly articulate. Its almost half 2 and I promised myself an early night for Tash coming up tomorrow. But this is something that happened tonight, and I wanted to remember this moment - after all, that's why I started doing this.

People in the chat said they were recording the BlogTV as well. I really hope I can find Tom and Edd's versions of these songs tomorrow morning on YouTube.

F1 baby

I have to write half a lab report for the 29th November and a 2000 word essay for the 3rd of December. What have I done today?: Watched the F1 season review on iPlayer.

This time last week Sebastian Vettel took the F1 world championship. I now have my weekends back - okay it was only every other weekend, but it was about 6 hours every other weekend - and all I have to look forward to over the winter is seeing how the driver market will take shape. The 2010 season had 18 incredibly exciting races (and one boring one) that drew to a close last Sunday with incorrect tactical decisions leading to the underdog taking the title.

The only thing is, I haven't stopped talking about it yet. Here, to people in lectures and lab classes, to the sports guys down in the bar, you name it; they're all sick of me.

My brain comprises of 85% song lyrics, 10% F1 nonsense, 3% Doctor Who trivia and 2% everything else.

And that's just who I am (I was going have my percentages not adding up to 100%, but decided against it). I don't really watch the football much anymore - saying that I only watched it when it was on BBC, ITV or Five anyway because we don't have Sky Sports - although I do still enjoy watching a good game of football regardless of who is playing; the tennis season ended months ago and I don't have time for figuring out when the athletics are on. I especially have no time for The X Factor or I'm a Celeb... but that's a whole different blog post (which I probably won't write).

Formula One is my sport (And whoever says it isn't a sport can just leave right now! How many non-athletes can withstand 5 times the force of gravity on their neck muscles and lose 3kg of sweat in an hour and a half? Get real), I strongly support certain drivers and strongly dislike others. I like watching daring overtaking manoeuvres, I pray for rain to mix up tyre decisions and strategies and it makes my Sunday (or Friday or Saturday for that matter) when someone crashes. And, no, this doesn't make me sadistic or evil - anyone who says they don't enjoy it in F1 when someone crashes is just lying, no doubt about that (for the record, its fun as long as nobody gets hurt, because then it's just scary).

(I actually have a separate twitter account for F1 tweets, so my followers don't hate me on F1 weekends. @MiniMF1 if you're interested).

Random fact of Mini's life: The computers in the Levy Lab are named after F1 drivers, which is an endless source of amusement for me. For the last two weeks I have circled the lab trying to remember where each 'driver' is and identifying which ones are my favourites (Button, Webber, Hamilton) and which ones I cannot use on pain of death (Alonso and Schumacher). Nobody else quite understands this and I guess it is a little odd, but aren't we all from time to time?

Rumour mill: I've heard that Nico Hulkenberg may be Mercedes reserve driver for 2011. Now is it just me or does this seem like a step down from the race seat and the pole position he had at Williams? Think about it.

Are you happy with where you are in life right now?

Myles Dyer (this guy again) was talking about life in his podcast - as he seems to do a lot - and I was inspired - as I seem to be a lot.

So yesterday http://dft.ba/-milesboo he asked what 5 things you would change about your life.

I couldn't help but think what I would change. And I thought maybe this could be a running thing, every 3 months I re-evaluate and see what I would like to change in my life in three month intervals.

Well, let's see if I stick to it eh?

1. Not speaking to my mum everyday - I used to check on her each night before bed and if she was still up we'd sit and chat until she was so tired she pretty much told me to f*ck off. Since I've moved out we speak most days on Skype, but it's just not the same.

2. Not living 30 seconds away from my best friend anymore - I had a huge argument with my mum once and it was just a 30 second walk up the road to a cuddle and a mug of hot chocolate with my beloved Tash. Now she's 45 minutes away by car and neither of us can drive.

3. Not being able to properly use my hand - this is a long term thing that I'm sure many of my IRL friends are sick of hearing about. I've not been able to use my right hand properly since the morning of the 29th January 2010 because it hurts between my little finger and ring finger. I'm having to try and adapt my writing style, but it's easier said than done.

4. Being unhealthy. In general I don't eat enough fruit and veg or do enough exercise and I guess it comes down to a lack of time mixed with a bit of laziness (which I'll be the first to admit). I gave up on my sponsored swim due to having no sponsors, so that won't have helped and being a student a lot of my food choices are based on how much time there is till my next lecture, what food is actually in the cupboards and how much washing up they will create, so I'm off to a very bad start. The jar of chocolate spread in the cupboard probably isn't a good idea.

5. My knees. Inevitably this was going to be on the list. It's not a serious condition - and hopefully by this time next year it should be mostly gone as the cartilage matures - but my chondromalacia patella gets worse this time of the year because of the cold weather. This usually is an excuse to go out an buy funky tights to try and keep warm but the fact of the matter is that it is painful and there isn't much I can do about it except rest with my hot water bottle (which, by the way, is never a bad thing).

I guess this list means that my life is pretty good. There isn't anything drastic in my life that needs to be changed, I'm not living somewhere I hate, I'm not surrounded by anyone that I hate and most things are just great as they stand.

One thing that would usually appear on a list like this is I would like to change my teeth. They've always been the only aspect of my physical appearance that I've been unhappy with. But my braces come off in three and a half weeks, so that's something that is already rapidly changing.

So, three months from now is the 17th February (two days before my bestest's birthday), I'll see you then for re-evaluation :)

To clarify, I'll see you before then as well, but not in this format.

My afternoon in tweets. (sort of)

I can't actually access twitter on my phone so I started texting tweets with a hashtag #libraryobservations (which I later found out didn't even make it to my twitter profile). I didn't want to link my computer up to the internet, because I'd just sit on Facebook and it would completely defeat the object of why I left my bedroom. However, these observations we're an excellent form of procrastination, which totally distracted from what I was trying to achieve by going to the library. At 20p a pop I decided to stop tweeting and instead started typing into a word document; satisfying two things – saving me money and making it look I was doing a lot of work (which seemed to be really annoying the girl sat opposite me).

For those who don't know, a tweet is a message of only 140 characters. Hashtags (# followed by a word) are used on twitter I presume to aid searching for trending topics (words or phrases that lots of people are tweeting about). Most of these weren't actually tweeted, but they are all under 140 characters (not including the timestamp, I added that for your benefit). You can follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/minimarshmallow

03:37pm: Going for the @hexachordal and philosophy combination again, but in the library this time. Let's get this essay done :)

03:51pm: A guy in front of me is watching a YouTube video of a person dancing and he looks disturbingly like Tash's brother #libraryobservations

03:55pm: The Chinese girl in front of the YouTube guy has the tiniest Netbook I've ever seen #libraryobservations #notprocrastinating

04:01pm: These seats aren't very comfortable #libraryobservations

04:03pm: The girl opposite me doesn't seem to like it if I knock the table while shifting my chair #libraryobservations

04:10pm: On second thoughts, that might not be a Netbook, looks a bit like one of those mini DVD-players #libraryobservations

04:16pm: There seem to be an inadequate number of plug sockets around this place #libraryobservations

04:19pm: Orange, yellow, green and malachite… shame my essay isn't on art (#currentlylistening Indigo – Tom Milsom) #notprocrastinating

04:21pm: There are an abundance of litter bins though; and yet there seems to be a lot of litter on windowsills #libraryobservations

04:23pm: I only have three hundred words left to do #progress

04:26pm: The girl opposite me seems to be procrastinating almost as much as I am #libraryobservations

04:28pm: Favourite @hexachordal song just came on (#currentlylistening Jake's Song – Tom Milsom)

04:35pm: Just realised that if I close all of the background applications on my laptop then the battery will last longer #idiot

04:35pm: I also need the loo but last time I went in the library the toilets were awful #libraryobservations

04:37pm: Haha the girl opposite me is trying too hard to make it look like she is doing lots of work because I just started typing furiously #libraryobservations

04:38pm: Due in tomorrow and I dislike this essay. I may go home and completely reorganise what I've already written #makingthingsdifficult

04:43pm: I don't speak Chinese, but her tone makes me think that Lady Gaga is just odd in all languages #libraryobservations

05:01pm: Time to completely re-format this essay :) yay for my own idiocy and perfectionism

05:02pm: I'm sure I went to high school with him! #kitchenobservations

06:06pm: Let's not talk about hardcore porn over the kitchen table please guys #kitchenobservations

07:07pm: I skyped my dad and my best friend is there #lifeisgood

07:19pm: My dad is dissing naps and Tash is taking my side. This woman is my soulmate #marriedlife

07:39pm: "I'll hire a hot actor to be your nurse" And I get to pay for it do I Tash? #marriedlife

07:41pm: "Do me a favour, when I get old and decrepit will you put me down?" Gladly Tash, and I might not even wait till you get old. #marriedlife

08:03pm: I didn't even say anything philosophical, it was just basic logic. "Erm… we're from Skem, we don't know what logic is!" #marriedlife

08:04pm: "Isn't that what you put in your washing machine bio-logic-al" #family

08:18pm: Tash is the loudest person I know, and yet I can't hear her on Skype! "Well if you open your window…"

08:41pm: The only reason I am writing at this point is because I'm not allowed that bar of chocolate until I finish #notprocrastinating

09:43pm: I've been writing this essay with double spacing for so long I forgot what 1.15 spacing looks like!

10:30pm: When you walk into the kitchen and it smells like brownies, you know you lucked out in the flatmate department :)

10:53pm: I've hit stalemate with my essay, so I have printed a copy and I'm taking the scissors to it to try and rearrange it :)

11:09pm: I threw out a paragraph. This is going well.

I know that this post is not what you're used to. But in case you didn't notice from that ^ I'm working on an essay. Also, after deciding I didn't like the format and having an overhaul I then spent two hours and three sheets of paper trying to change it to something I liked better, before deciding to revert back to the original format.

I tweet more than I post to Facebook because my Facebook friends get a little bit annoyed if I post more than 30 updates in one afternoon. In my opinion, Twitter is made for spamming and it also helps my inner thoughts get out to a bigger audience, but at the consequence of tweets being less personal (I could write a whole post about contrasting my attitudes to Facebook and Twitter at this point, but I have an essay to write so I'll make a note about this for later).

Deadline is in 14 and a half hours. I'm still going but I should have it finished in the next hour (if I stop procrastinating on my blog that is).

HAHA I just got this twitter @reply:

@minimarshmallow Hello, need any help with your essay? You are just one click away from help! http://ow.ly/38w5g" Seriously?

Advice

Have you ever asked someone for advice about something that you've already made up your mind about?

I'm sure we've all done it at least once. But I swear I've done it at least twice in the last month.

Anyone who knows me personally (probably most of you reading this) will know that I had to change my minor earlier in the year. I had a lot of trouble with this because I just didn't know what I wanted to do and there were plenty of people pointing me in different directions that I wasn't sure I wanted to go. I ended up settling on philosophy because I had done it before. For pretty much the last 4 years in fact.

First I tried for psychology in education, because my major is in psychology so it was an obvious choice. But, because I had left it so late, the course was full. I left her my details and she said that she would email me if any places became available on the course which is when I started to look towards the philosophy department.

I got myself enrolled on philosophy, I purchased a reading pack, I caught up on half of the lectures that I'd already missed and then I received an email from the woman in psychology in education - someone had dropped out; there was room for me.

I was struck with indecision. On the one hand I had wanted to do this because it just meant more psychology and I was essentially only studying one subject instead of having to do two. But on the other hand I had spent the preceding week immersing myself back into philosophy and working extra hard to catch myself up. I guess in my head I felt that I had put in too much work to give it up and have to do the same in another subject.

But I did what I did in all situations like this, I called my mother.

I told her what had happened. I explained the two options that I now had and how far I was into my philosophy. I said that I didn't want to waste the week of extra work I had done and I definitely didn't want to do the same again; but the idea of only doing psychology was still one that was very attractive to me. My mum showed a slight bias to me changing to psychology in education.

What I hadn't told her is that I had already typed a reply to the email from the psychology in education woman which read 'It's fine I have already started another minor, feel free to give the place to another student. Thank you.' and I had just decided to consult her before I pressed send. I had pretty much already made up my mind but spoke to her about it.

I did something very similar for a much less important decision a few days ago. I pre-ordered Charlie McDonnell's album in the bundle with Alex Day's from DFTBA records (http://dft.ba/Charlie). I got the order through to the PayPal stage ready to click confirm and then consulted mum about it.

I guess it links back to what I said just before I left for uni about spontaneity (http://dft.ba/-Spontaneity). I've not quite reached the stage where I can be spontaneous. I can make my mind up about a decision very quickly, but then I will seek help to back me up.

Maybe it stems from a fear of being wrong or a fear of failing and the idea that if I consult someone on a decision and they back me up then I can apply some of the blame to them for what went wrong. (I have to stress that it is only some of the blame, after all, I had already made the decision).

And if the person I asked didn't back up my decision, well, I'd have probably moved on to someone else.

It was on an episode of Scrubs where JD asked Turk if he thought it was a good idea to do something that he had actually already done. It almost becomes a joint decision if someone is backing you up, even if that wasn't in place when you made the decision.

I guess I need an extra little push to be spontaneous.

Mini fact: I joined the pool team. Does this count? It's pretty scary because I'm largely bad at pool.

Trick or treat? (Obligatory Halloween post)

I can't remember the age at which I stopped trick-or-treating.

I remember it was the same year that my brother stopped, even though he's three years younger than I am. It's also the same year that my parents stopped giving out sweets to trick-or-treaters. We used to turn of the lights and go to the cinema to get away from them.

We live in an area where it is not unusual to have your house egged if you ignore them, but it they seem to have gotten tamer in recent years and it seems to be an unwritten Halloween rule that if the lights are off they will assume that you're not in.

I lived in the same house for 15 years. Having studied memory, I know that that is as long as I can remember. We did live in a flat before that but I wasn't old enough at that time.

When you've been going trick-or-treating on the same street for at least a decade, you learn a little something about the people that live in the same place as you. You know which ones are 'never in', you know who gives the best sweets, who is likely to trick you, who will be dressed up as well, who will give you money and even the exact house that the old man who gives you the tangerine lives in. You know which houses have different people in from last year, who has a dog and who has kids and roughly how old they are.

I didn't realise until recently that you learn something about your neighbours on Halloween that you wouldn't learn any other time of the year. It also doesn't seem to be as useful as anything you would learn any other day of the year, but the point still stands.

The last year I went trick-or-treating I went with my best friend at the time in her estate rather than my own. It's a refreshing experience when you go trick-or-treating somewhere new, and you get all new sweets and new faces but I can't help but think back and think that I should have done my last round in my own street, for the memories more than anything else, but as is life.

This year I went out with my best friend. We dressed up (like the big kids that we are at heart), and we went out clubbing and got drunk in fancy dress. My skirt was so short she spent the entire night following me around pulling it down but overall the whole experience was good.

I don't know when the shift happened. Less than half a decade ago I was dressed as a much more innocent looking; last minute, makeshift zombie; with a different best friend asking strangers for sweets and we fast forward to the 18 year old me in the shortest skirt of my life and a pair of fishnet tights and high heeled boots (which did not last all night I will tell you now).

In Mean Girls, they say that 'Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.' When does this occur? When do you stop seeing Halloween as a fun way to get free sweets and start seeing it as an 'excuse' to dress like a slut and get drunk?

I mean, from what I've seen, most people don't need an excuse.

I'm not going to go into if I think it is begging and if children should do it and some of the extreme measures I've seen mentioned regarding it (laxative chocolate so they won't call again next year) because I don't think it's worth the debate. For me Halloween has always been fun and I think that is what it will stay as.

My definition of fun has just changed considerably since I was 5.