So I have now finished my first year at University - moved out of Student Halls. I am back in London for the next few months.
Oh, and it is insanely hot at the moment.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Contact Lenses
Anyways, I recently decided to take up the opticians on their offer of a free trial on contact lenses. I normally don't even think about my glasses while I am wearing them, but sometimes it would be far easier to be spectacle-free. When playing football for example, or whilst out for the evening. Also, glasses have a habit of getting blurry in the rain, so contact lenses would be practical in many ways.
So, as I was saying, a few weeks ago I decided to try contact lenses. The biggest problem is that I hate anything having anything close to my eye - and the idea of putting things in my eye definitely seemed unappealing. So when I went in for the trial, and was shown how to put them in, the biggest barrier was that everytime my finger, with a lens balanced on my fingertip, got close, I would blink. It took me quite a few goes to get the hang of it. About half an hour passed before I managed to get the first one in, but as soon as I had the technique for one - and found that it did not hurt in the slightest - I was able to put the second one in with half the attempts. Happily, contact lenses want to sit on your eye, and so getting them in position is no trouble at all. And taking them out is no bother either. Additionally, they are incredibly painless! I can easily forget about them when they are in. I had feared they would be uncomfortable, but this has not turned out to be the case at all.
For those of you who don't know, the technique for contact lenses is this: to put them in, you balance the lens on you index finger, and holding you eyelid out of the way with the other hand, touch the lens to your pupil. You then gently blink and it slides into position naturally. To take a lens out you slide it with your finger to the edge of your eye, which allows you to simply pluck it out. Simple! And I can now do these first time! Yay!
Since the trial was such a success I signed up for 10 (pairs) a month, of single-use daily disposables; I am happy with how this entire adventure has worked out.
So, as I was saying, a few weeks ago I decided to try contact lenses. The biggest problem is that I hate anything having anything close to my eye - and the idea of putting things in my eye definitely seemed unappealing. So when I went in for the trial, and was shown how to put them in, the biggest barrier was that everytime my finger, with a lens balanced on my fingertip, got close, I would blink. It took me quite a few goes to get the hang of it. About half an hour passed before I managed to get the first one in, but as soon as I had the technique for one - and found that it did not hurt in the slightest - I was able to put the second one in with half the attempts. Happily, contact lenses want to sit on your eye, and so getting them in position is no trouble at all. And taking them out is no bother either. Additionally, they are incredibly painless! I can easily forget about them when they are in. I had feared they would be uncomfortable, but this has not turned out to be the case at all.
For those of you who don't know, the technique for contact lenses is this: to put them in, you balance the lens on you index finger, and holding you eyelid out of the way with the other hand, touch the lens to your pupil. You then gently blink and it slides into position naturally. To take a lens out you slide it with your finger to the edge of your eye, which allows you to simply pluck it out. Simple! And I can now do these first time! Yay!
Since the trial was such a success I signed up for 10 (pairs) a month, of single-use daily disposables; I am happy with how this entire adventure has worked out.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Northernhay House Review
So I have just finished my first year at Exeter University, and moved out of student halls. I was put in Northernhay House, a privately owned self-catered accommodation. Being self-catered has some huge perks: you can eat whenever you want, meaning you don’t have to get up ridiculously early for breakfast or have to be home at a certain time for dinner. You also get to eat whatever you want, which is nice. Tho' if you are in catered halls, you get all your meals cooked for you, which is an extra worry taken care of. But the worst thing about being self-catered is how communal dining is such a more social experience.
The best, and worst, thing about Northernhay is the location. It is not on Campus like many halls, but instead it is right behind the high street. This is fantastic in many ways, being only a few yards from shops and bars and clubs and cinemas and everything is wonderful. It means that you can go to the high street on a whim. The only drawback is that does give it a fair walk to campus, about 20mins to the bottom of the hill, and puts it even further away from all the other student halls. Also it can sometimes be unbearably loud with traffic, if you have a window on the side of the building I was on.
Northernhay also suffers from being privately owned. The free internet we were promised at the beginning of the year turned into paid internet and the promised parcel collection service was stopped. The building also suffered from electrical problems while I was staying there, meaning we lost power for days - and no power meant everything in the kitchen was offline, there were no lights, no water, and no heat, for a long stretch of a cold winter. This sucked. But I guess then there is an upside to being privately owned, that you are left alone for much of the time.
My room in Northernhay was actually quite nice. It had a shared bathroom, but that was never a problem, and it was only a single bed, but then that is normal is most places. It had a nice and big desk, with a decent chair, and a large cupboard. The room had an odd shaped wall that prevented me from putting my bed flat against the wall, which was inconvenient, but I got used to it. The room was actually pretty big, and once I had everything set up, it was a really nice place to be. Tho' I should mention, Northernhay has incredibly thin walls. You do hear almost every word of anything the person in the next room says.
Anyway, Northernhay was not brilliant. There were big electrical problems while I was there, the long walk to campus was inconvenient, and opening the window was unbearable due to the noise of traffic. But then again, being so close to the city centre was wonderful, plus it was nicer than some of the other halls I saw, and my room was larger than expected. I enjoyed my stay there, and I will miss it, despite its flaws.
The best, and worst, thing about Northernhay is the location. It is not on Campus like many halls, but instead it is right behind the high street. This is fantastic in many ways, being only a few yards from shops and bars and clubs and cinemas and everything is wonderful. It means that you can go to the high street on a whim. The only drawback is that does give it a fair walk to campus, about 20mins to the bottom of the hill, and puts it even further away from all the other student halls. Also it can sometimes be unbearably loud with traffic, if you have a window on the side of the building I was on.
Northernhay also suffers from being privately owned. The free internet we were promised at the beginning of the year turned into paid internet and the promised parcel collection service was stopped. The building also suffered from electrical problems while I was staying there, meaning we lost power for days - and no power meant everything in the kitchen was offline, there were no lights, no water, and no heat, for a long stretch of a cold winter. This sucked. But I guess then there is an upside to being privately owned, that you are left alone for much of the time.
My room in Northernhay was actually quite nice. It had a shared bathroom, but that was never a problem, and it was only a single bed, but then that is normal is most places. It had a nice and big desk, with a decent chair, and a large cupboard. The room had an odd shaped wall that prevented me from putting my bed flat against the wall, which was inconvenient, but I got used to it. The room was actually pretty big, and once I had everything set up, it was a really nice place to be. Tho' I should mention, Northernhay has incredibly thin walls. You do hear almost every word of anything the person in the next room says.
Anyway, Northernhay was not brilliant. There were big electrical problems while I was there, the long walk to campus was inconvenient, and opening the window was unbearable due to the noise of traffic. But then again, being so close to the city centre was wonderful, plus it was nicer than some of the other halls I saw, and my room was larger than expected. I enjoyed my stay there, and I will miss it, despite its flaws.
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
Monday, 22 June 2009
Beach
Went to the beach today. Exmouth is only about 15mins on the train, and is like, £1.50 return. And the sand is fantastic! Still a pain as it get in hair/room/bed/food/eyes/nose/ears/etc, but worth it when the weather is this good. Today was brilliant, it got just the right level of hot and sunny without being sweltering. Sat around most of the time while there; also got burger and chips from cute ice cream lady, with the coldest lemon fanta ever, and played some beach cricket - which is entirely unlike regular cricket as their is no intention to run, or really to get people out. Since there is no bounce on the sand, the bowler has to go underarm, so the batsman can just whack it and watch the fielders go for spectacular dives and catches 'most every time. Yay!
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Sunday, 31 May 2009
My Day - Part Two
So anyway, after playing football in the scorching heat all afternoon, my legs were dead, and I could really not be bothered with the long walk home straight away. So I stopped off in the Birks Grange TV Room, and settled down to watch whatever was on, which turned out to be the final of Britain’s Got Talent. Having seen none of this before, all the acts were new to me. First up was a street dance group called Flawless, who jumped about a bit in time of a Michael Jackson mix-tape. Their performance was fine, it felt very short, but it was not really a display of any talent, and not really a good performance, so in the end it was kinda “meh”.
See it was here that I got the point of Britain’s Got Talent. It is about celebrating people who are amateurs. It is about finding people from nowhere who are actually decent performers with a skill. That is why I judged every finalists based on that – if they were a good performance, and if they had any skill.
Next up was a Welsh twelve-year old singing. He was incredibly forgettable. He was followed by the bookies second favourite, a body-popping dancer named Aidan. He was crap! He did nothing exceptionally talented in his dancing, and his choice of song was poor. He danced to “low” by Flo Rida, and made no attempt to get low, even when the lyrics specifically say “get low, low, low, low, low, low, low.” Poor Effort.
After them, we had an advert break, which told us of the new album by Pol Pot. Turns out that the mass murdering African dictator is now disguised as an operatic singer! Ha ha, yes, I know, I am ‘bout three years late with a joke on previous winner Paul Potts name. Still made me laugh.
So now we had the act which I thought was best, Two Grand, a singing duet featuring a grandfather and granddaughter. The granddaughter actually was a very good singer. The grandfather was not much good, but he didn’t have a very ambitious part in the act, so it did not make much difference. Problem was they where rather twee, so I guess that hurt their popularity.
Then there was a 10 year old girl who was fine, but not exceptional. Then a 17 year-old singer who I wanted to punch. Then there was by far the best performance, a father and son comedy dancing act, which featured two large Cypriots doing some comedy Irish dancing, which was hilarious. There was also the most boring saxophonist ever, who just looked like an average street busker. Turns out he is an average street busker! Shock! And the judges proclaimed them all as incredible performances.
This was what I really did not like about Britain’s got talent. It is full of this smarmy jingoism, this cry of “let us do this for Great Britain! We are the best! Look, these nobodies from some suburban dump are as talented as the professionals that people pay huge amounts of money to go and see! These singers deserve world acclaim and huge record deals, and these dancers have choreography that should be on Broadway, and they are all average British people! Britain! Great Britain! They get to dance for the Queen! Queen of Britiain! Britain! Great Britain!”
The honest truth is that this show should be celebrating something entirely different. It should be celebrating the personalised twists of these performers. How they are talented enough to both have a skill and to construct an incredible performance upon that; to be original. Judges coming out and proclaiming that each of the finalists has an ability so special that they deserve world acclaim, just left me feeling empty. No, sadly an amateur act thrown together in the 48 hours since the semi-final, will not be as good as a professional standard performance that has been in rehearsal for months. Pretending the two are on par just causes people who are put off by this sort of staged over excitement, ie, most normal people, to ignore the show, when some off the people were actually quite good.
Anyway, after having that complex thought during an advert break, the show continued. Susan Boyle came on, and sang the same song she sang the first time, and looked very spaced out. She was not that great. There is not much to say really.
Then there was Diversity, a street dancing group, who both managed a good performance and to show their talent. They were both humorous and talented. Best of an average bunch, turns out they won.
Then there was an advert for America’s Got Talent, starting next week. And I walked home.
See it was here that I got the point of Britain’s Got Talent. It is about celebrating people who are amateurs. It is about finding people from nowhere who are actually decent performers with a skill. That is why I judged every finalists based on that – if they were a good performance, and if they had any skill.
Next up was a Welsh twelve-year old singing. He was incredibly forgettable. He was followed by the bookies second favourite, a body-popping dancer named Aidan. He was crap! He did nothing exceptionally talented in his dancing, and his choice of song was poor. He danced to “low” by Flo Rida, and made no attempt to get low, even when the lyrics specifically say “get low, low, low, low, low, low, low.” Poor Effort.
After them, we had an advert break, which told us of the new album by Pol Pot. Turns out that the mass murdering African dictator is now disguised as an operatic singer! Ha ha, yes, I know, I am ‘bout three years late with a joke on previous winner Paul Potts name. Still made me laugh.
So now we had the act which I thought was best, Two Grand, a singing duet featuring a grandfather and granddaughter. The granddaughter actually was a very good singer. The grandfather was not much good, but he didn’t have a very ambitious part in the act, so it did not make much difference. Problem was they where rather twee, so I guess that hurt their popularity.
Then there was a 10 year old girl who was fine, but not exceptional. Then a 17 year-old singer who I wanted to punch. Then there was by far the best performance, a father and son comedy dancing act, which featured two large Cypriots doing some comedy Irish dancing, which was hilarious. There was also the most boring saxophonist ever, who just looked like an average street busker. Turns out he is an average street busker! Shock! And the judges proclaimed them all as incredible performances.
This was what I really did not like about Britain’s got talent. It is full of this smarmy jingoism, this cry of “let us do this for Great Britain! We are the best! Look, these nobodies from some suburban dump are as talented as the professionals that people pay huge amounts of money to go and see! These singers deserve world acclaim and huge record deals, and these dancers have choreography that should be on Broadway, and they are all average British people! Britain! Great Britain! They get to dance for the Queen! Queen of Britiain! Britain! Great Britain!”
The honest truth is that this show should be celebrating something entirely different. It should be celebrating the personalised twists of these performers. How they are talented enough to both have a skill and to construct an incredible performance upon that; to be original. Judges coming out and proclaiming that each of the finalists has an ability so special that they deserve world acclaim, just left me feeling empty. No, sadly an amateur act thrown together in the 48 hours since the semi-final, will not be as good as a professional standard performance that has been in rehearsal for months. Pretending the two are on par just causes people who are put off by this sort of staged over excitement, ie, most normal people, to ignore the show, when some off the people were actually quite good.
Anyway, after having that complex thought during an advert break, the show continued. Susan Boyle came on, and sang the same song she sang the first time, and looked very spaced out. She was not that great. There is not much to say really.
Then there was Diversity, a street dancing group, who both managed a good performance and to show their talent. They were both humorous and talented. Best of an average bunch, turns out they won.
Then there was an advert for America’s Got Talent, starting next week. And I walked home.
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