The highs have been meteoric and the lows have been catastrophic. If you care, this week there has been Semé at Gatecrasher, a bottle of Jagermeister and no kayaking at NSR, D Double E over the Funktion One at Wire, and 2 feet of Subway in two days for £5.16. Tomorrow, I am going to go out and buy a plain moleskine, and start a proper diary, as that was the reason I started this blog, as a diary for myself to look back on. New age fun with a vintage feel and all that. I’m considering shaving my hair off. I consider it a lot, but I might actually do it. For charity perhaps, in a public place and streamed over the internet.

This was the 28th of October 2008, to the 11th of March 2011. I hope you enjoyed it. Enough to warrant 31,888 views anyway.

Everyone and everything does in the end. All good things…

At the weekend I mainly just cotched at the flat and watched some films, but on Saturday night I went over to the Radio again to help on Nathan’s show. That was a laugh, as Ryan and Fred came over too and having another couple of people to chat too gave it a bit more of a party vibe. After that, we headed over to Ryan’s Flat and then we played Monopoly until 2 in the morning with Sophie and Jacob as well. I was well and truly trounced.

Monday I ended up going to Halo for Jodie’s Birthday. It was ok I suppose, but I did kinda go into it with a slightly piss-taking mood and just a general desire to not go under at all costs. Definitely not the best night out I’ve ever had, but it wasn’t as bad as the last time I went Halo. Halo also makes it quite easy to stay sober, as it takes like 10 minutes to get to the bar.

Tuesday night I was planning on watching a film, but then I ended up going to the Library again with Fred, Sophie and Jacob and had a pretty nice time then. I think I might be killing my teeth with the amount of coke I am drinking this week, but I’m sure there’s probably as much sugar in a beer as there is in a coke. Maybe, I will keep telling myself that. Last night we just went for a quiet one at the Brudenell, and that was pretty nice too.

Going Gatecrasher tonight, which is definitely not one of my usual haunts, but Nathan and Colley are DJing so I get in free. Woohoo. Should be a laugh. I’m thinking about calling my sober fortnight off a day early as I have obviously shown I can stay away from it quite easily, what with the amount of times I have gone out sober and the amount of free drink I have turned down. I Sam Croasdale, can never be said to have a problem. I had a lot to do tonight, and I have done most of it. I think now instead of getting my last minute kayaking stuff between lectures tomorrow I will get it after my Stats tutorial, and write up my Group Theory then instead. I have lost the bit of paper with all the readability tests and scores, so I can’t do the Modelling work until I can talk to Milo tomorrow morning, and I can finish off my application form now. God I hope I get that job.

This week I also got tickets to see Wild Beasts at the Brudenell, and Nas and Damian Marley in Manchester. Both will be totally awesome. Totally.

I Am Listening To:

CMYK by James Blake

Saturday, I spent chilling. Wasn’t hungover at all really, which is quite surprising honestly. Then in the evening (after checking out the massive mill fire from out window) me and Nathan headed to the radio station and I helped out on his show. It was a lot of fun, and I think I’m definitely gonna try and get a show next year. Thinking a show based around reggae, ska and dubstepy vibes – anything you can skank to I’m feeling.

Rest of the week has been filled with me struggling to get everything I need to do, done. I’ve had so much uni work, and I just haven’t had time to do all my adminy stuff, like order a passport, and write emails. I have so many things to do, and when I remember I need to do them it is too late in the evening to have the energy to do them. Went to Faversham on Tuesday evening, stayed sober, and it wasn’t brilliant. Not a night where I like the vibes, and staying sober when everyone around you is hammered is not that fun. Although tonight I was sober, and everyone else was drinking in the Library and I had a great night.

I know there is something else I need to say, but I can’t remember, so never mind eh?

I’m Listening To:

The King Of Limbs by Radiohead

Last Wednesday was a pretty standard drunken kayakers night out. Terrace, Mook (the cocktail bar) then Hifi. Mook floored me. Too many Long Island Ice Teas. I felt very very bad the next morning. Nothing much more to report from that night really.

Friday was another good one. I was planning to try and do a Fruity Collection for my Kilimanjaro Climb, but as I realised I didn’t actually know how to go about doing that I went to Faversham with everyone else instead. That was a brilliant night. David Roddigan played a near-perfect dub/reggae set, and then Sbtrkt was really good as well. I’d peaked just before Sbtrkt, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I was started to get really tired. Also, the night started off on a little bit of a bad one, as they messed up their queuing system really badly, and we were waiting in the rain for about half an hour outside. Terrible, and my hair was even worse. I’m starting to think I need a haircut again. Even though I know it would be terrible, I’m starting to have ‘shave-my-head’ urges. You know it’s getting bad when you get them.

Saturday was the day of our infamous H-Block party. To put it simply, we partied like only H-Block can. By this I mean, we turned up really early, no-one else did for about an hour and a half, but when it kicked off it kicked off hard. Me, Nathan, and Colley all did some DJing before we got shut down at around half 2, which I think was pretty good going. I reckon we had about 50ish people there at points, but more than that actually turned up for parts of the night. There were lots of people who were absolutely plastered, but I am happy to say that it seemed like everyone had a really good time. When we got shut down they threatened us with about £250 worth of fines, but it doesn’t look like we’re gonna get them. I say we, it would be people upstairs who got them as it was their flat that had the fire alarm covered. I dunno if we will do it again, but next time we’d probably do things differently, ie no smoke machine and no door props, so they can’t even threaten us with fines. When we got shut down, a few of us decided to move onto another house party in Hyde Park, so we did that and stayed there for a while. That was alright, but again the night had peaked back at ours. It was a bloody freezing walk home, as I’d given my hoody to Hannah like the gentleman I am, so it felt like it was a lot longer than it was. I then spent Sunday watching Leslie Nielson films in bed. Brilliant weekend.

Bringing it full circle, last night was the Canoe Club AGM. Basically, we went for a curry, voted in the new committee members, recounted the number of places in town we are banned from, then got mightily drunk. 7 Spices was really good, like an actual brilliant meal. Definitely go back there again. I left early at midnight, as I needed to get up in the morning to finish a report, but I’d still been out for a good 6 hours as we had started so early. One brilliant thing, is that I didn’t have a hangover this morning, or at the weekend. Hopefully I am now immune, that’d be nice.

DMZ tomorrow night, that is going to be a large one.

I Am Listening To:

We’re New Here by Gils Scott Heron and Jamie XX

The rest of the week has pretty much been spent doing the inordinate amount of work set. Seriously, it’s like we came to this place to get an education or something. I also found that I did have my Children’s Bonus Bond certificates, so I sent them off to get cashed in.

This is a pretty poor post, but it has kinda been an interim week between some big events. This weekend is gonna be BIG. Fav on friday should be brilliant, and our house party is hopefully gonna be off the fucking chain. Then next weekend is Exodus/DMZ which by all accounts is gonna be massive too. Excited much?

Last Friday started pretty well, not much time spent in Uni and then we went to see a house. It was a good house. All the rooms were pretty damn big, and it was pretty damn cheap as well. Two minutes walk from the Co-op too, decent. Couldn’t find anything else in that price range that looks anywhere near as good as that, so we are going to sign for it tomorrow. Sweeet. That evening was Dilation at the Commonplace. Once again, that was a sweet night. Although I am a little foggy on the specifics, I remember it being bloody awesome all the way through. The hangover the next day was unpleasant though.

Saturday it was Hannah’s birthday, and when we headed over at 8 I was feeling unreservedly grim. Got a few beers in, some other people got decidedly more than I did. Neither me nor Nathan really fancied Propaganda as well, it’s not that good, so I started asking “will we still go if Hannah doesn’t make it out?”. The short answer: Yes, and we did. Come 11 o’clock and there were a few Buckingham heads that were definitely not going to be making the journey, so we headed over, and frankly had a not-brilliant night. The highlight was probably this Is This Love remix I heard, that I just remembered which was brilliant (who says this blog doesn’t serve a purpose). I suppose it was a pretty entertaining night for a couple of reasons, but being that hungover when we started drinking was just the main ingredient for an average night.

The rest of the week has been dominated by my Modelling and Investigations module, which is basically murdering me. Knife in the back murder. Going to a Karaoke thing tonight, which should be a right laugh. That’s it apart from that really. Kinda wish I had went to Kode9 last night, but it was hard to get up this morning and I know I just wouldn’t have done if I had gone out, so it was probably a good thing.

Spent the tail end of last week in bed, watching some films. As of right now I am 24 films into my film challenge, that is 6.5%, which isn’t bad going so far I think. Friday was a big one though. Twas the night of the Monty B end of exams party (which in actuality I only attended for about half an hour but whatevs) and the first pre-drink sesh I had operated since early December. Got into my stride fairly quickly, and managed to discuss a wide range of topics with people before we left for Halo. I hadn’t been to Halo before, and frankly it wasn’t that impressive. Looooooong queue for the bar, and shit music, so a bunch of us left to the Faversham to see Joker do a DJ set. I really like the Fav, it is always a top night when we go. Joker was sick, and just yeah. First Flames of 2011 on the way back as well.

Most of Saturday was grim. Pretty much still had a hangover going when I headed over to Ellerslie halls for their post-exams party. Easily got my £3′s worth of alcohol before I headed over to Old Bar to see Nathan and all that. After a pint there we went over to Simpsons for a pizza, but on the way some people basically gave me a bottle of wine. Made my night, and made it lot heavier than I predicted. Twas a banger as well.

Sunday I had a two day hangover. Bad.

Lectures started up again this week. Everything seems pretty fine so far. Nothing as boring as Linear Algebra this time around as well.

I’m looking forward to this weekend too. Dilation on friday and Hannah’s birthday on Saturday should make it pretty lively. Gah, not really feeling writing at the moment.

Again, my past week has mostly been taken up with revision. Since you last heard from me I have partaken in examinations of Linear Algebra and of Geometry. They went ‘ok’ and ‘quite well’ respectively. That means by my reckoning this exam period has been a success, so good for me I guess. Even though a lot of my revision time was taken up with despair over the prospect of more revision, and watching films on iPlayer.

Last Friday was quite nice, just headed to Old Bar for a few drinks with the H-Blockers. Had a bit of a chinwag, and just a general chance to catch up. Twas quite pleasant.

In case you are wondering about my sudden change in writing style, well it will suffice to say my parents recently discovered my blog and were apparently horrified with my foul language. I don’t even notice when I swear anymore, but apparently the general population has a differing viewpoint of “who really cares, they are just words”. They pointed out that a future employer might find my blog and be appalled by my crass language. I would alternatively say that having 116 posts about my life shows dedication, a decent sense of punctuality and a decent grasp of the English languagem but I guess I would say that. So yeah, talking a bit posh to illustrate the ludicrousness of insulting my use of informal language in an informal setting.

I cooked a nice chicken soup this week, but it annoyed me how I could only buy onions in a pack of six when I went shopping, so I need to eat 5 and a half onions by this time next week (use-by dates etc), and I barely use onions.

I downloaded a DJ program earlier, and am trying to learn how to software DJ. I can’t afford control surfaces or mixers or whatever, but I think this is good enough. The hardest thing is getting the two tracks beats to correlate, I have set them to the same tempo, its just my reaction times on pressing play thats letting me down. Or crappy free software.

This weekend should be fun.

Everyone came back to Leeds in dribs and drabs really. It’s nice being back in the flat, even if I have spent the most of it inside trying to revise. I say trying, because I do have a major concentration problem when it comes to revision. Just generally not a big fan of it, and I struggle to do things I’m not a big fan of. I’ve been making post-it note revision cards and putting them on my wall, and I think next term I’m gonna do that as term is going along. If I’m constantly looking at my notes, surely that means I will remember everything super easily. Anyway, so far I have had my Probability and my Calculus exams and they have gone pretty well indeed. It annoys me how the practice papers they give us always seem much harder than the actual exam. That might be me just going into ‘exam hyperdrive’ though. I think that’s the best way to describe my uncanny ability to pull the information out of my head easier when I am sitting in a big hall. Something about large enclosed spaces. Odd huh. One more exam on Friday, and one next Wednesday and I am free. Not sure if I am gonna get up to much on the day though. Either people will have finished before me, and gone home for the couple of days, or they won’t have finished yet. I may just get a bottle of wine and watch a bunch of films until the weekend.

In addition to all this ‘revising’, I have started listening to quite a bit of stuff on Spotify. I guess if I can’t download music, I might as well just stream it. Getting a lot more into the Jamie XX/Four Tet style electronic music, and the straight up dubstep tracks. I had a Mary Anne Hobbs mix from her radio show five years ago that featured stuff like Digital Mystikz and Skream. It all still sounded as fresh as stuff released in 2o10, and there isn’t that much music from 2006 you can say that about. I definitely lean on the more reggae influenced side of the genre, and for me it is definitely a 21st century evolution of that genre. I don’t get how some reggae-heads don’t like dubstep when they are so intrinsically linked. Whatever. I definitely am not as knowledgeable about it as I am other styles of music, but I think my knowledge of music in general has been going downhill for quite a while. It’s harder when I can’t just go and download something on a recommendation and listen to it on the bus to school. For some reason, listening to something on the PC always seemed like more of an effort and I am just intrinsically lazy.

I am so excited for the next big night out. The weekends after exams finish are going to be large.

There Is Love In You by Four Tet

I was at my aunties this weekend. It was pretty decent. We always get fed well when we go, and more recently, I always drink well too. Kinda ruined my ‘January Detox’ idea, but I wasn’t too enthusiastic about that anyway. I will do ‘February Detox’ instead. Or just start only taking a tenner with me when I go out, and no cards. That might help my bank balance. I also got my hands on all my NS&I funds that were set up when I was small. Gonna be honest, I didn’t get much pocket money when I was growing up, but god am I glad that my parents did these instead. I’m not taking all the money out now, not at all, but it’s enough to make me worry free. I’m definitely not going to spend as much this term though.

So yeah, back in Leeds now. I’m pretty excited for everyone else to get back, and to get exams out the way. I’m not really looking forward to them, but no-one is really. I’m gonna crack on with some hardcore work (well I say I will) until they are over on the 21st, so I can have a few days of pure relaxation before the new term. Finally bought a stapler as well, so I can have organised notes next term. God I live a boring life.

I am really bored of not listening to new music. I hate that I can’t torrent here. It is really quite shit.