There's no better journey than me on my way to you

Or the other way round for that matter, since Tom is coming to see me tomorrow! Hurray *victory dance*!

The title of my post is from a song by Arab Strap called 'Dream Sequence', so I thought I'd post my favourite Arab Strap song, 'If There's No Hope For Us':


Aren't they just amazing? It makes me sad that they've spilt up now.

Since Tom is coming tomorrow, I've had to tidy my room. It was definitely much needed - I can actually see my floor now! Although it needs a hoover...is it weird that my favourite part of tidying my room is lining all my shoes up? I don't put them in any particular order (flats, boots, heels etc.) but I just like seeing them all in a row. It reminds me of being a kid and having your shoes all lined up in the hall, or in a cupboard like we had at one point - it makes me a bit sad that now I just tend to kick them off anywhere.

I also had to do laundry today and have decided that I need to start choosing my washing machine in the basement laundrette VERY carefully. The machine I put my coloured stuff in decided that the spin was not needed and so all of my clothes were soaked. Now, normally, the logical solution would be to put them in the tumble dryer but a lot of my clothes would be wrecked in there. I'd rather have clothes that take forever to dry than no clothes at all, thank you very much.

Emma kindly lent me a funny contraption with pegs on to dry some of my clothes. However, they were literally dripping wet. It's stopped now, for which I can only be totally thankful as I don't think I'd get any sleep tonight with 'Drip, drip...drip, drip' ringing in my ears! If there's one thing I really cannot stand, it's a dripping tap. My room is next door to the bathroom and you can always hear gurgling and dripping from the sink...urgh!

Bugger me, that was really dull! I'll talk about music again. I've decided I actually quite like Lily Allen's new stuff - I know she paved the way for the supremely irritating Kate Nash, but the singles from her new album have actually been good. Lou also showed me her cover of 'Womanizer', originally by Britney Spears. To say I'm not a huge Britney fan is something of an understatement, but I do love this cover:


I want to watch two films - 'Lilja 4-ever' and 'Christiane F' at some point and think I'll review them when I get round to it. I'm going to clamber into bed and get an early night for my seminar tomorrow (yes, midnight IS early).

MJ
xxx

You and me, so lazy...

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since I last updated my blog! I can only blame a combination of work and sheer laziness - sounds like I'm contradicting myself there, but when you've finally finished writing your bodyweight in essays all you want to do is watch TV and slob. Sadly, I have another 2000 word essay in the pipeline, so I'm going to have to get off my lazy butt and do some work at some point. This Bank Holiday weekend has been UBER-LAZY! Lots of sleeping and eating chocolate - heaven...

I'm actually going to try and do some essay writing (can I get a 'woop woop'?) in a while, so before I go, I'll leave you with the 'Things I'm Addicted To Right Now' list I've decided to start putting up as often as I can:

MUSIC
I am very very fond of Tom McRae's music right now. I've liked him for a while, but a song came on my LastFM (look for TweeLittleThing if you have an account) playlist a couple of days ago and I hadn't realised how phenomenal he was. Here is that same song 'End Of The World (Dose Me Up)':


Another artist I'm enjoying is Trip, or more specifically, one song I heard by Trip called 'River Phoenix'. Very funny and clever lyrics - considering River Phoenix died in 1993, maybe the song is a little too late, but who cares when it's this catchy?:


FOOD
White Kinder Buenos are the sex, that is all.


See you soon guys!


MJ

xxxx

Trying to find the perfect match between pretentious and pop

I don't care who you are - man, woman, snake or bird - you cannot beat a really good mix CD. Tom's coming over tomorrow to celebrate Valentines Day this weekend and part of our gift-exchanging is to make CDs for each other. Mine is, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but well...I really like it. I'm not going to mention what's on it as Tom has a blog and he might see this. Then again, he never blogs anyway so if you're reading this, Tom: get off your arse and type!

On another note, I never realised that appreciating film and taking it to an academic level could be so hard! I started a Reading Film class this semester and as interesting as it is, it's well out of my comfort zone considering I flourish best when in the realms of Keats or Dickens! I'm not an English Literature dork for nothing...

The Gilberto Perez book, 'The Material Ghost: Films and Their Medium' is our bible and while it really does seem fantastic, it's so hard to concentrate on even one chapter when I'm so sleepy. I've been dashing about doing laundry and tidying my room all day. Now that may not sound taxing, but believe me you didn't see my room. It really did look like I'd decided to have fun with some plastic explosives.

Even my 'unwinding' tonight is going to be work, as I have to watch 'Pickup On South Street' for my seminar tomorrow. I suppose I can't complain there though; it looks an awesome film and whoever thought watching films taxing?

I'll update after this weekend, if I ever get chance to stop that is!

Lives in a house, a very big house in the country

Okay, that title is massively inaccurate since I actually live in University owned Halls of Residence in the middle of one of the largest cities in England, but all that is irrelevant as I have found a house for my second year (bring on the fanfares).

Here is how it happened: upon returning to Manchester after Christmas my friends and I decided it was time to look for a house since one can only live in Halls for a year unless you apply super-early. It ended up with seven of us deciding to share, six of whom were girls and one of whom is a boy. Initially, there were going to be two boys but one of the boy's girlfriends decided she wouldn't want him living with six other girls. Despite the fact that none of us ladies are interested in this guy sexually, he is apparently now struggling to find a place to live. Go figure...

Anywho, yesterday afternoon we attended three house viewings that seemed intent on severely damaging our morale. The first one really pushed the phrase 'absentee landlord' since he never turned up, although the presence of open wiring poking through the house assured us this may well be a good thing. The second house fared a little better, as although the landlord had not arrived, the students living there let us look around. About five minutes into us looking around, one of the guys told us the landlord had phoned and sold the house yesterday.

The fact that he hadn't told us before we came to view the house really pissed us off and we were starting to worry that we'd all be living in bins next year. We trudged to the third viewing both anticipating and dreading what we might find.

Coming to the drive was a good sign, since we saw the landlord waiting for us. Inside proved even better, what with two bathrooms, a good sized lounge and kitchen and HUGE bedrooms. The biggest bedroom is probably about the size of my kitchen; pretty big when you consider that my kitchen is communal for twelve people. At only £61.15 a month we were jumping for joy and expressed our interest. Today we went to the estate agent and paid our deposits.

That in itself was a challenge for me, since last night I went round to Fran's for fondue (hilarious dropping of bread in a tub of cheese with skinny forks anyone?) and then we all went out to 42nd Street for mad dancing to indie. I'd convinced myself before going out that I should try and leave early, since I had to be awake by 8am to pay my deposit but inevitably ended up getting home at 4. I feel a bizarre mix of happiness and optimism, combined with the sensation of feeling like death due to lack of sleep and the awareness that I really need a shower.

It's a good feeling...

Rip her to shreds

Don't you hate it when you're in a dandy mood and something (or someone) barges in and wrecks it? I do and if you don't, then sorry but you're a little bit weird.

I've just sat my Mapping the Medieval exam and so obviously I was pretty chuffed walking back to halls. Forget the fact that it's currently pissing it down with rain (I do, after all, live in Manchester) and ache from yesterday's gym session. I've got nothing left to revise for an I'm pretty chuffed - I also have Red Bull, a Kit Kat and a copy of Dazed & Confused, as I thought I'd treat myself.

Tom (lovely boyfriend with doe-eyes and a great taste in electro) rings me on the way back and as we're happily chatting away some woman bumps into me, sending my phone flying out of my hand and onto the floor. Luckily, there was no permanent damage, but the battery and frame were sprawled on the street, leaving me looking like an arse and having to fix it.

Now normally I wouldn't mind this, yes I'd be a bit miffed, but it was an accident. Then again, that's what I'd think if the person apologised and/or offered to help. This silly cow just looked at me crouched over the scattered bits of my phone and started walking off. Tacky as it sounds, I shouted some pretty choice words at her retreating figure. Not one of my finest moments sure, but I thought we lived in a world where if you do something like that you say sorry. I know I'd feel terrible for months if I'd potentially broken someone's phone in the middle of a conversation.

Tom rang me back once I'd assembled my phone, thinking I'd been hit by a car or something. I guess the stupid bitch has that to rest on her conscience now.

To cut a long story short - GRR! Am I not allowed to be happy about my exam being over? Do I just have to worry about phones and the state of the world if people are this impolite? Jeez...

My lovely, doe-eyed boyfriend mentioned above has now started a blog of his own: www.numan-esque.blogspot.com, you should all check it out as he puts excellent music videos on and stuff like that.

xxx

Greasy insomnia release me

So it's 1:30am, I'm actually pretty damn shattered and yet I can't seem to sleep.

This probably isn't good, considering I have to be up early tomorrow to start revising. I have a 'Mapping the Medieval' exam on Friday and just in case you're wondering: yes, it is as fun as it sounds!

I should have worn myself out about two hours ago. I was just sat at my desk when I heard all this banging and giggling coming from Katie's room next door. I went in to see what was going on and Emma, Vicky and Katie were using a broom handle to bash on the ceiling and floor alternately. I don't think I've ever felt like more of a student than I did at that moment.

Somehow talk got round to the dance Bethan and Emma have created to the song 'Poker Face' by Lady Ga Ga. Neither Katie or myself had seen it in its entirety, so Emma put the song on and urged us to learn it. It was such a hilarious dance that we ended up doing it about three times, adding new parts as we went along. I don't think whoever lives above and below Katie will be impressed though, considering the broom-banging was then followed by hyper students singing and dancing to a song playing full blast!

After that, we just sort of sat around talking crap. The conversation got round to our old schools and Vicky told us about the token 'weird kid' at her school. Apparently she stuck a fork into a potato and then dropped it into someone's bag! All I could think was how much I would pay to see the expression on the face of whoever's bag it was. Priceless.

Anyway, needless to say dancing to 'Poker Face' so much made me build up something of a sweat, so I don't know why I'm not more tired. I'm fully aware that typing this isn't helping my crap sleeping patterns in any way, but I thought that, since this is a new blogging account, I should write an introductory entry.

Introduction:
My name is MJ and I am a 19-year-old student in Manchester, studying English Literature. I like my record player, friends, fruit and caffeine. I dislike arrogance, bad music blasting out of mobile phones and being unhappy.

Nice to meet you all, though in all likelihood no one is reading this at all. People only read the naughty blogs, you big pervs you!

Until next time xx