Saturday 25 September 2010

Freshers, fun and finding happiness

It's hard to believe I've been in Leeds for over a week, but it's been a pretty good week overall I think. Once we get past the initial sickness of the first weekend (which I still can't figure out a reasoning for, other than the dodgy lunch I had that day), everything else has been pretty good.


We had an intro party and I now like to think that I paid the princely sum of £10 to go into the union, lose my flatmates, listen to a funky jazz band for a few hours and then sit outside with another lost girl. Admittedly, I would have paid £10 for the musicians and preferred to have sat with that girl inside and been able to be a bit more cheerful and what not, but these are the curveballs that life throws at you sometimes.


Put it this way, if I hadn't have lost my friends in there, I wouldn't have gone back to the bar with the band and stayed there. I wouldn't have heard possibly one of the greatest covers of Hotel California that can be known to man. I wouldn't have got talking to some other people and I wouldn't have sat outside in the cold and spoken to a crying girl sat on her own. 


Yes, maybe I should have asked for her number, or at least given her mine, but the way I see it...it would have been wrong to ask for her number when she had lost everyone and was pretty worked up. I offered to walk her back to her flat so she got home safely though. 


Maybe in another universe, I got her phone number and everything goes a little bit differently. Or maybe it doesn't. I'll probably never know.


I'll be completely honest and say I cannot remember for the life of me what happened on Tuesday or Wednesday. Actually, that's a bit of a lie. I kind of remember, but this week has rather merged into one giant mess in my brain. Tuesday I think was when people went to a 3D disco. I ended up in the bar chilling with people from B Block and Beth from upstairs, and then once the bar shut, we sat around outside for a while before deciding that going out would be pointless and retiring to our flats. Or something like that...


I went exploring on Wednesday and got completely lost trying to come back. Quite simply: epic! To cut a long story short, I ended up wandering along the main road (I think it's an A road..) for ages and trying to remember  where we had turned originally. On the plus side though, I know all of the industrial parks pretty well around here now. Not that such knowledge will serve me that well... 


Just think though...with bizarre things like that happening to me completely sober, imagine how messed up my life could be if I drank. It freaks me out slightly just thinking about it.


Thursday was a night of two halves. The first half was spent in B2.2's kitchen playing drinking games and I learnt how to play "On the Bus". Something I'll definitely remember the rules of. Obviously, drinking games aren't usually as fun when I stick to soft drinks, so I mixed things up a bit. It turns out that cheap Red Bull knockoff, coke and lemonade doesn't taste great, and actually makes you want to throw up a little bit. So even though I wasn't getting drunk, the stuff I was drinking was disgusting and something that I wouldn't have been surprised to see on Fear Factor or a similar show.


Then the silent headphone disco. What a funking awesome idea that is. It just meant I could go into a club and not have to listen to that awful bang-bang-thumpy dance music all night. Instead, they had another channel of music which was dedicated to playing rock, 90s, 00s and indie stuff. Just my sort of thing really. Nothing beats the sound of pulling your headphones down to hear several hundred people all singing Sweet Child of Mine though. We sang very loudly and very out of tune. Oh, how we sang though and how we loved it.


Obviously, inbetween all of these evenings, I had to go to Uni for various introduction meetings. Strange to think that I'll actually have to start doing some serious work on Monday! I'd better get some reading done!


We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit 

Aristotle

Monday 20 September 2010

It's just the way life goes...

So I've made the big move up to Leeds. Is it up? I'm never really sure...I assume it's more "across" than up really. Not that it matters to be perfectly honest, unless I was on a boat and needed coordinates and stuff. I'm not though, so it's all gravy. The move itself was alright, I have to admit that I went to sleep about half an hour into the journey after I finished one podcast, stuck another one and then I woke up with about a minute of that left and turning into Leeds.


Moving my belongings in was about as good as I could have expected, or wanted. It was slightly strange how we all essentially moved in at roughly the same time, but quite awesome since we were all in the same boat. They're four absolutely cracking people, and I don't think I could have picked better flatmates if I'd done it myself. Our cooking isn't fantastic, and none of us will be winning Masterchef any time soon, but we're getting by. Saying that, I'm going to blow my own trumpet and claim that I made an absolutely epic stir fry before. The flatmates seemed to enjoy it anyway. At least I didn't have to clean up though, that's always good.


I really wish I wasn't feel so dodgy though. I didn't eat a thing really yesterday because my stomach is completely fucked up, and to be honest, I've not really felt like eating too much today either. It was just a case of eating because I was starving having not eaten since Saturday night, and I can't not eat my own food...that won't look good. At this rate, I'm going to end up addicted to Rennies or something stupid. It almost certainly shows why I don't take any form of drugs unless I can help it. I don't really see a need to justify my use of them, but I guess it's simply because I'm going to look an absolute bellend if I don't go out and party during Freshers like everyone else.


I'm going to need some more before I go out tonight, otherwise I risk being that sober dick who throws up. I'm in uni in the morning for the beginning of my talks, so I don't fancy having a ridiculously late one. To be honest though, I've slept quite well and still been getting up relatively early. I was up at half 8 this morning before I realised I didn't need to be awake and went back to sleep until 10.


Today has been a good day though. I went up to the uni to register and have a bit of a look around and get used to places, and it went rather well. Registration took the absolute piss and I was stood there for well over an hour, just to get a union card. I had look at some societies, ended up joining the Rock society (RockSoc!!) which will undoubtedly be useful for me through the year. To top it all off, I ended up on Student Radio doing a quiz show type thing and won. Sadly, my Doctor Who knowledge that won me free entry somewhere later this week won't really be great when it comes to the ladies...


Looks like this one will have to just be a couple of paragraphs. I'll be back tomorrow to share the love about my first day of actually needing to be up at Uni.




The way to get started is to quit talking and start doing.

Walt Disney

Friday 17 September 2010

The beginning of the rest of my life

As I sit down and start to write this blog entry, hopefully the first of many, it is 00:06 on Friday 17th September. The time is rather insignificant, but the date signals something potentially great in the life of Thomas David Kayll. 

Later on today, during the early afternoon, I'll begin to move my belongings into a small room in a flat in Leeds city centre as I begin at university. Of course, this is a step that many young people take these days, and many of you who read this (at least, in my mind there's many of you reading this) will also be on the same journey as me. Without a doubt, it's going to be one hell of a ride and I'll love every minute of it. 

Thinking about it though, it's almost absolutely crazy how my entire life and the vast majority of my possessions can be fitted into a couple of boxes and bags and moved. I've got a holdall filled with my normal day to day clothes, and a smaller one that has every shirt I own, some ties, some black pants, and black shoes. On top of this, I've got the books I've had to buy for uni, which has come to make a rather heavy box, some other boxes with leisure books, DVDs, my music so I can continue working for that diploma at the end of the year and other bits and pieces. Obviously, I've now got pots, pans, plates and cutlery, but I've never needed to own that sort of stuff before...they will be used though, and you can expect to see me kicking ass on Masterchef in a couple of years!

I imagine this is a thought that people would get quite frequently when they move, but this is the first time I've moved house basically. I've spent 18 years of my life in the same house, and it is my home. So it almost seems illogical to want to move away from it. I guess that's part of growing up though, by moving away, I'll hopefully become far more independent than I've ever been, or needed to be, in my life so far. 

From virtually everything that everyone has told me though, I'll have a great time. Whether it's through the sheer experience of living away from home, studying something that is a real passion for me and that I want to do for the rest of my life, or meeting new people, trying different things and discovering more about myself as a person.

I'll also point out how awesome it is that the final thing I choose to do is watch Scrubs in bed. For those interested, it's the last episode of J.D's residency before he moves on to become a fully fledged doctor. Oh, and there's one of the infamous Dr. Cox rants there as well, absolutely amazing.
We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. 
                                                                          Walt Disney


It's been fun people, I've had a fun 18 years so far in life. Things can only get better...right?