I've procrastinated today. I woke up at 9am, ready for an assault on the library - but suddenly felt a rush of tiredness. Fell back to sleep, woke up and then decided walk around in the sunshine in my shorts and t-shirt. It was truly glorious. Probably the best weather of the year so far. Despite that, I came back to my flat from this nonsense wondering about, ate some chicken tikka pasties and then watched my team get relegated. I'll save you the grizzly details of how and why we got relegated after 11 years in the Premiership - but if you must here you are. Interesting and sad at the same time. I am tempted to fuck my exams up just so I can stay here in Sheffield for one more year to watch us play at Hillsborough (or even Brammall Lane!)

I just can't believe I wasted today - especially considering I have an exam on Thursday. I mean, it was such a pointless waste. I could have done a ton of more interesting things to while away the time. Lie in the sun, read some interesting works of literature, write a love letter to girlwhohappenstobemyfriend - but NO. Instead I just slept, ate, pissed around on youtube and did minimal work.

The only notable thing I have done is to just glance over some notes concerning Japan's economic slide and finish up my classical Japanese translation, which is ready to hand in on Tuesday morning. That will mean I have done 1 out of 3 modules this year and go into the next ones feeling a little bemused over how well I'll do. I've severely lost some passion for this course now - and hopefully next year will rescue me (both a long and short way off at the same time.)

*ugh* I'm sitting here typing this with a ton of kanji flashcards and my grammar notes, all the while wondering when I can finish this year. It seriously can't come soon enough. I should really make up for today by working my arse off tomorrow. This time I mean it... No, I really do. I don't care how tired I feel, or how depressed.

I would like to make a retraction to the previous post a while back about my annoying and loud flatmate. Heat of the moment stuff and all that. Since the exams have kicked in, everyone has been a bit stressed out. Actually at the moment, its eerily quiet. In fact, I wonder if a tree fell in our flat - would it make a sound?

Anyways... I should stop using this blog as a vehicle for my personal rants (no matter how fun they fucking are sometimes!)

I am definitely going to bed soon.

Jaa ne.

About time I blogged in...

Today saw me do an incredible thing. Studying on a Saturday! Why, whatever next?

Right now I have wearily said goodbye to my second year lectures and I now enter the murky waters of final year exams. I actually have only two to tangle with. The first which is this coming Thursday and the next which is the Thursday after. I feel more confident about them than I did last week, which is mainly due to the fact I am revising the shit out of them. I still think I'll fall below expectations - but given how there is very little to fail (I know I am not going to get a scholarship) then part of me is going into the exam feeling a little relieved. I just want to go in, get it done - receive my customary shoddy mark and then piss off.

At the moment, I don't really care about the grade for Jap Language. I consider it valueless, given the fact most of the Japanese I learn outside of the course is going to better use to actually improving my Japanese. I should be on course to nail the Joyo kanji (i.e. the entire main character set) before I go to Japan as well simply cram the living daylights out of vocab and speaking techniques. So far, I simply do not have the time to go over material such as that, when you have to revise these utterly pointless topics. I'm simply cramming the essential vocab and going over the grammar structures to make sure I can pass.

Anyway. I'm sacrificing what is now 11 days in order to pass these exams. Boy, I really need to get cracking on this writing practice. Well anyway, a deadly strain of swine flu is going around the uni and I have to avoid this somehow, despite spending most of my time in the Bangladeshi-sweat shop conditions of our library during exam season.

Thank you pro-plus and red-bull. It will all be worth it in the end. I guess. :-|

Right I'm off to bed, to think about all things Japan. Night night

Jaa ne

One of the select choice of music I use to annoy my flatmate, and one which I seriously am starting to love a little bit more since I latched onto a few years ago is the wonderful Proxy from Russia.

Its very much electro at its best.

Check out it out here. Basically a remix of "Dancing in the Dark" by Schwarzkopf . But it manages to mix a ton of other elements in there as well. Just brilliant. You may have heard the tune 'Raven' being payed on a Mr Oizo set, which also featured this gem of a track.

Yes, that's right Bruce Willis is Dead!

Living in Rockingham House is cool and all - but sadly this year has kinda been shit, because we have to share with some Nigerian, who I really can't stand the sight off. That's not racist btw. I couldn't give a toss where he comes from. If you're annoying, you're annoying. I reserve the right to call a spade, a spade and a dick a dick.

He basically goes to bed at 4, wakes up 10ish and then decides to play what they call "urban music". In short, he's just an asshat. In fact that's probably quite accurate. He's an ass who wears a hat, or possibly a hat thats made of asses. I haven't decided yet. But the smell he gives off, leads me to think its the latter.

Tbh, his music is no contest for my bass-laden electro music. Its just the sheer annoyance of his music I take a severe dislike to though. Its like being forced to listen to the most turgid music of all time through my bedroom wall. Even my brother, who listens to some quite annoying soft-rock stuff is not half as annoying.

To describe the situation its like some fat Nigerian is hovering of your bed forcing his chubby little fingers into your ears, singing the same song over and again whilst playing a game of 'Let's pin the tail on the stereotype'

(Mental note: that might have seemed racist - in which case I whole heatedly apologise and gleefully tell you to fuck off for stop being so stupid.)

I kinda love it because his speakers are so absolutely shit. Even when he tries to turn it up, I have so much volume and bass that it can just overpower them. The thing is, I just don't wish to sit in my room listening to some fucking half-intelligent 'gangsta from the hood' or cocained riddled snotbag giving me a lecture on what it means to love a woman in more ways imaginable. I'd rather just play the most hardcore annoying electro music ever.

Anyways... I've decided to play a mega-mix I've found on the internet (about an hour long) which I shall play at a time of my choosing during the hours of 5 to 7am. My other flatmate exams finish a day before mine (basically the 3rd) and the other will be in Cardiff, So Mr Smellypants better keep an open mind, and gleefully "respect my differences" (what the management of this godforesaken place tell us when we complete about his pongy smell and pig-like attitude towards hygiene.)

Oh my! I think I've just broken my speakers! Hahahaha. Take that you smelly Nigerian!

Recently my flatmate recorded some of the noise, him and his 'homies' were making a few days ago. Thank God I wasn't here. It sort of reminds me of this internet wonder.

Hopefully, if I can record some more between now and when I leave - I am tempted to turn into a remix, and turn it into a internet hit. Or at least wake up him at 6am with it. Think of it, he's merely waking himself up.

Firstly, I respect the fact he is gay (my previous two flats I lived in, had gay flatmates) and have nothing wrong with that. I mean, I assume he is gay. The RnB, the constant male company, the working out in the kitchen, the late nights in an out of the flat...

I mean... I sorta think so. I mean the rest of us have all had our g/f's round and he has nothing but men coming around and working out in makeshift flat in our gym... Makes you wonder.

Maybe he's just shy to introduce us to Julian or whatever guy he's fucking up the ass.

(Mental note: This seems homophobic, in which case I gleefully respect you to shut the fuck up and live here instead.)

Oh, only 5 days and two weeks left here in Suckingham House. Let's hope I can hold out before then eh? Or maybe I'll be bumraped by 50 cent when I'm not looking.

PS: Not a homphobic racist.

Britain is often noted by many foreigners that its always raining. This is actual not true, as some places in the UK are incredible dry. The East for example receives far less rainfall than the west of the country (in places such as Manchester) as the rain tends to hit the Pennines after rolling in off the Atlantic. Its not uncommon, in my hometown (in the North East of England) for it to go weeks and weeks with it not raining - especially in the winter months, when most of the preciptation tends to be snow.

Sheffield is kinda unique in that because it is located in the center of the country and next to the bottom ridge of the hills - the weather can turn from one day to the next quite suddenly. This tends to be more of a rounder synopsis of British weather as whole. We can have glorious t-shirt wearing weather one day, and pissing it down rain the next.

So if you are thinking of coming here, and god help you. I advise you to prepare for all weather elements. This is especially more true in the summer months when the weather can turn quite volatile. This is the season we receive most of our rain due to the large increase in humidity and alternating pressure.

Today itself was quite abymsal in terms of weather as it was, rather typically, overcast and rainy. It seemed to hold off for a while, and then around about 7pm - we got a bit of thinderstorm action. Not exactly the same type of thunderstorms you get in Asia - the ones I will most definitely be witnessing for a large protion of my trip next summer.

After farting about trying to get a good movie, I jumped into our creaky little flat balcony and kept rolling. After a while my arm got so tired that I turned the camera off. *BOMB* Maybe it was melodramatic but it sounded like someone firing a shotgun. A huge spark of light. Bollocks. The camera wasn't running and I had missed it.

After exactly 4 failed attempts, I sat for the next one and finally got something. It was completely unspectacular. Not even a loud enough roar to wake the Gods in my head for a Classical Japanese class after 7 cans of Strongbow. And then the sun started to break through, and the mini-storm floated off into the Peak District the exact same way it came.



Storms are normally so shit in the UK - but apparently we get a lot of thunderbolts hitting our fair little island. In fact, a lot of people have been killed by them - although I was brave enough to survive this one! (Can you feel this sarcasm wafting through your computer screen?)

I'd like to blog about something interesting, but the reality is that life is inherently mundane right now and I generally have nothing to talk about. I went to Tuesday Club with two of my friends last night, got a bit drunk and missed my two lectures this morning. This means, over the past few weeks I have missed more lectures than I have in the entirety of my time in Sheffield up until that point.

The fact is, there is very little new things we are doing and everything is merely exam preparation. I am finding most of the classes really, really tedious - and would prefer to sit in the library revising - seeing as I have next to no time to revise once all the lessons end.

For my classical Japanese module - I just have to finish off a translation - which I have pretty much done (about 90%) and this is due in 12 days I think. Off to the library tomorrow both to redo it (that is to say, keep going over it until it all makes sense) and then start revising for my Japanese language exam - and maybe sneak in some Contemp reading as well. With luck, I should have a very productive weekend.

But as you can imagine, its all incredibly boring - I feel both prepared and unprepared for this exam at the same time. Something tells me there is going to be a nasty little surprise when I open the paper up, 3 weeks from today. I know the material, but I think my Achilles heel (that is to say my essay writing techniques in both Japanese and English) will kill me. The very most I can do is try to remember these grammatical structures. I am aiming for a 2.1 - despite the disaster of the last one - but I will gladly take a pass beyond anything.

The driving force for me passing these exams has just increased, now that I have discovered the most amazing girl ever. It seems bizarre, but I actually have made (sorry 'we' have made) the conscious decision to not see each other for a while. Its partly due to my time constraints - but also the fact that I just want to focus on my exams and get them done - so we can be together next year. I'd sacrifice a few weeks for the sake of a relationship that could go on for years or even a lifetime, you know? Besides, when I don't see her for a while, I certainly feel more attracted to her. Also, she is leaving the country and I won't see her for just over 2 months after June - so this is going to be quite difficult and of course needs some practice to get used to.

Ah... love.... exams... stress....

Such a bizarre, schizophrenic, Kafkaesque time in Sheffield right now. Tomorrow will signal the marker of 3 weeks. Just 3 weeks, 21 days if you will. When the sky shall turn black and shall only be lightened up seeing her straight after it.