Teeing of my Teaching Career - Saturday

The dull, annoying thrumming, of a pneumatic drill. Oh there are worse things to wake up to, but not many. On the plus side as I haven't actually had any alcohol for about 2-3 months I was quite okay with it. At 0910 my music ticked on as predicted and I listend to it for a good hour before heaving myself out of my bed. I did some basic webby stuff and suchlike before talking to Aaron on MSN. We decided that making a mockumentry about me would be funny so he filmed me walking down to the refectory. On the way I tried my best to look gormless and almost lost. Once I reached the refectory door I deliberately tried pushing (you have to pull from outside) and hoped it was caught on the camera. I sat down and had a cracking breakfast. Aaron arrived a little later and a little later after that, so did Gabriel. I'd agreed to help Gabriel with some programming stuff before our test. I sat down and got to work teaching Gabriel as much as I could and ignoring Aaron filming me. After I'd filled Gabriel's head with as much as I could he went off to re-read it and make sure he understood it (I always made sure he asked me if he had a question). Aaron and I put our stuff in our rooms and went to play Golf. Yes, Golf. We walked down to a footpath just by the sea and proceeded to hit balls as far as possible. Aaron was rubbish to say the least, he only hit one ball a decent distance. I on the other hand got about 3 a good distance and almost hit a seagul (the ball was going somewhat more slowly by that time, it'd have been fine). We plan to buy some cheapo golf balls and do it again, just somewhere that we can actually retrieve them from. After the Golf we went back to Aaron's room and watched the video footage. It was pretty hilarious, me walking into the door was my favourite part. I'm definatly going to have to make a mockumentry. What I'm also considering is making a podcast. I've been listening to a lot of them recently and boring ones make the same mistakes, they're bland, monotone, slow and just irritating. I just need a subject to talk about, so if you can think of a good subject, tell me and I'll think about making a podcast on it. For those not knowing what a podcast is, it's like an Audio-Blog. In the afternoon I spent about an hour arguing game mechanics with a WoA player. It was quite amusing. I had a couple of other chats and did some writing. I've gotta get up at the early early time of 0900 ish tomorrow, oh dear, whatever will I do... I also decided to start listening to some classical music, the Berlin Radio Symphony is quite nice, very relaxing for someone like me, with absolutely no stress whatsoever. Worthless information of the day Camomile tea is disgusting. Yes, it's true. If I feel sick I'll be blaming that, or the bannana. I did try adding three sugars to it, but it didn't help. That's enough sugar for half a cup of tea, gone. Hmm, maybe I can use my remaining sachet as a gift on Monday? (Answer - NO)

Apparently I'm not THAT ugly (A pretty lady said so) - Friday

I got up at 1000, nice and late. I savoured the warm cosey feeling of a thick duvae twice as wide as my bed, large enough to wrap up several people in. Mmmmmm. I got up, spoke to some people and decided it was worth going to my lecture. It was only an hour long, but I had three reasons for it. 1 - Tawfik may give out some exam clues (every mark counts) 2 - I wanted to get the exact exam timetable 3 - I may meet a nice lady on the bus Well, as it turned out it was only worth going in for #2. Tawfik taught us about something that we didn't need to know till next semester. #3 also didn't got to plan, I even had two packs of ginger cookies, one opened. The plan here was that I could say I didn't like them and would they like them (thus making me seem less like a weirdo, more like a friendly person). Aaron and I found someone going into the langstone laundrette so I offered her the cookies and she accepted. All I got out of her was her name (Laura). I must say that I'm disheartened (but only slightly) at my success this week. Still, Monday is a whole new week and I always try to be contagiously optimistic. I've been thinking a little about what Nick said, that trying to find a girl at the bus stop may be a bad idea because they don't go there looking for a guy (unless they're like me, but we all know that I'm an individual). As I don't go out getting drunk, in fact I have very little time for that sort of rubbish at all, I will have to improve my tequnique. I clearly need to read "How to win friends and Influence People" more often. My current objective is to read it in spare minutes. Another thing I've found out (after asking some people) is that the blog is funnier when it relates to them in some way, that's not the exact wording used, but when basic psychological principles are applied, that's what they mean. I think it also helps for it to be different each day and suchlike. As such I'm going to try my best to make it so, just because I can't get a Girlfriend doesn't mean I can't write an interesting blog. Dinner was excellent, I enjoyed the fish and chips immensly. After dinner I did some random stuff, I can't remmeber what but I hope it was semi-productive. At about 1900 ish I started collecting the WoA results. I finnished the results at 0030, and the Custodians still have to decide things like the wars. Item of the day Where that title came from. I did have my face (horrible as most of you may think it is) as my MSN avatar. I took it down and put up another pic and then later, talked to someone. They paid me the above compliment (I didn't in any way even suggest anything). Here's the key part of the conversation, it made my day. Her: wheres ur piture gone? Her: lol Her: put it bac up Me: okay *puts face back up* Me: better? Me: :) Her: much better lol As such it's staying as my MSN pic and I'm smiling, despite being tired, exhausted and probably on my way to dying after actually eating fruit (it was half a bannana). Note: Apparently the older posts are now being replaced by new ones, but are the old posts really that interesting?

I'm a Tour Guide - Thursday

0300, drunks, loud voices. Need I say more? After actually getting woken up by my music at about 0710 I laid in bed until I had to get up or not get the bus. Hassan's lab was as usual, interesting. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know that David and myself managed to figure out how the some rather basic components work. I left the lab an hour early (I think David managed without me, he's better at this project than me) and started getting paid. I spent two hours sitting down next to Lisa and sometimes a guy called Ben. After that I helped lead around the guests and generally not actually need to put in any effort. However, upon getting back from the lab tour I was forced to actually think. Dr Nick Savage is a lecturer, he's also very smart and the conversation with him was most stimulating. A lecturer called Borris also arrived, he's pretty amusing and was telling me not to talk so much if I wanted a girlfriend. I'm planning to turn up to his lectures (even though he doesn't teach me) and ask him the hardest questions I can think of (he said I should). After the last of the visitors had left I shoveled all the biscuits, tea, sugar and whotnot into a bag. Here is the resultant mass of what I'm going to call 'free goodies'. Those that can recall the last open day I helped at will probably also remember that one Nick Savage took loads of stuff, well, I beat him to it this time. Nick also took down the location of this blog and will no doubt be most amused by it. After we'd all packed up I realised that there was no bus at 1600 (though I did check to make sure) and so walked back. I wish I'd timed it (and run a bit more). I also realised that half of you probably don't have a clue what I look like. I had the camera out and decided to take a picture of myself. Here is that picture. Those that knew me a while ago will (hopefully) be pleased to note that the spots seem to be going. Dinner was not as impressive as usual, though Marissa very kindly said I could have her ice bun or whatever the thing was if, I got her two apples. That's one of the easiest "second pudding's" I've had in a while. I didn't even have to go up and ask for a second one. After dinner I chatted to some people over MSN and wrote an intro page to the blog over several hours. I also found that I know the names of a LOT of people. With regards to the cookie situation, I have enough cookies to last me a while, though Nick and Borris suggested that the Bus Stop is the wrong place to look for a girlfriend, they forget that I'm looking for people based on what they think of me, not what they look like. As such I think that people that consider the offering of cookies to be nice will probably be a better friend. Item of the Day Yes, annoying sound is now gone, it was getting a bit pathetic. As such I'm now going to provide at least one intersting and/or random fact each day. Today's one is from Nick Savage and is something he noticed in my speech. I said "I shall". It's antiquated, but is actually correct grammar. It is incorrect to say "I will". "We" is the other way around, it's correct grammar to say "We Will". Have any of you noticed me always saying it like this or was it just a bit of luck that I said "I shall" rather than "I will"?

Reader Numbers Skyrocket - Wednessday

Shortly after posting yesterdays blog, my MSN sign in name changed to "Can Teifion get a girlfriend? Find out at http://teifion.blogspot.com". Lots of people messaged me within 5 minutes saying that they really liked my blog. I need to do this sort of thing more often (well, not when I achieve my aim, but until then...) Today was not the best day, I woke and had breakfast. Went to the computing lecture, answered all the questions that nobody else wanted to. I then went to a very very boring lecture about business. After that I went back to halls and chatted on MSN, did some Othello planning and other such stuff. I spent most of my time shortly before dinner talking to a Columbian about dating. I've been given lots of tips, including but not limited to, shaving. As such I will now stop proving to Briley that I can grow a beard (even if it is very slowly) and have a cleanly shaven chin. I've been doing more pushups, I'll start counting how many. I'd like to note that I'm doing proper push ups, arms at 180 degrees to each other and chest dipping all the way. Dinner was pretty good, roast. Though the apple that I had afterwards was horrible (Sorry Luis, it's going to take a while to make use of that tip). After dinner I did some more chatting and web stuff. Of bad note is that today was a bad day for my searches. I engaged exactly 0 new ladies in conversation. I will have to try harder tomorrow, I'm an open day guide, maybe there will be one there. The CU meeting that evening was quite good. We discussed some stuff and then somehow got onto the topic of exactly why I'm not a Christian. After the hall group I went back to my room and tried to persuade Sarah that Anton was okay to talk to, she's pretty firmly against it for some reason. I then was told the Briley's internet connection was down, so I went over to her room and managed to find no reason why it wasn't working. I then tried to unistall Norton Anti Virus. I must say that Norton have a very nice piece of kit there, it's VERY hard to uninstall safely. I didn't actually touch anything because there was no surefire way of uninstalling it. If anybody knows of a good way of removing Norton from windows, email me - sarkalian at gmail.com - and tell me how. I can then fix Briley's computer and put a real anti-virus software system on it. The best way would be to stick a Mac OS on it but I'm not sure what the best way to do that is. It would however stop just about any viruses (they will just not work). Tune in to tomorrows blog to find out what I did as a Student Guide, see a picture of me in my Student Guide uniform and find out how goes my chatting skills. There is no annoying noise today, instead I must say the following to two people. BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH Their online names are Hegemon and Zorg. They are the MOST gullible of people that clicked the link. Some people went abotu 10 links in, that's bad. But these two went around the loop (apparently it loops) TWICE.

Not so hot today - Tuesday

If you're reading this because you can't believe I even think I can get a Girlfriend, read Monday first. I was woken by the not so dulcet tones of Aaron phoning me. What made it slightly more annoying was that it was at 0130 and I'd gotten to sleep about 30 minutes ago. Surely it must be an emergency. No it wasn't. It was Gareth's block getting a fire alarm. I've decided that if that happens to me, I'm putting some clothes on and taking my duvae with me. Hmmm, maybe I can use that to start a conversation with someone... *adds to list of stuff he can use* Any hoo, after going back to sleep I got up at about 1030 and had breakfast and did some web stuff. I also got a chance to chat with Sam. I already knew that Dominique did Entertainment Technology but didn't know that she was in the same class as Sam and Duane. They saw her at the bus stop and Duane said "Do you want a cookie?". They then all started talking. It transpires that Sam and Duane are under the impression that I've said I chatted up Dominique. If I did, sorry, I meant that I got her chatting (if only for 60 seconds). Oh, she's also got a Boyfriend (lucky guy that he is). My aim is of course to get a Girl friend, but I'm happy to just get into conversation with people to start with (I'm almost anti-social). However, I had a lecture today and another pack of cookies, and as is often the case, a sunny disposition. However, there was nobody in the least bit interested in talking to me so I stowed the cookies and bided my time. The lecture was okay, and afterwards I went to the bus stop to go home. Again, nobody that seemed to want to talk to me. As such I decided to eat the cookies. (Don't want them going to waste). Dinner was okay, after it I did some blogging and web-design. I need a way to get more cookies, I've run out. On the plus side I do have 2 litres of Sugar Free Coke and it tastes extra good because it's only 17p for 2 litres. Talking to people on MSN the general consencus is that I am doing well and on the right track for getting a girl friend. For all the girls out there, do you think there is anything wrong with what I'm doing, I'm just waiting for someone to yell through over MSN *HIGH FIVE*, Way to go Teifion More importantly, I'm wating for a lady to do this, and mean it. I made a very poor start on my othello program before realising that I have some WoA stuff to do (Auto-Orders for you WoA players) and so did them. Several friends have expressed a wish to help in making database stuff for WoA and so I've gotten them to register on the forum. We've got a private area where we plan stuff. Chances are it'll get more active once we start learning PHP and MySQL (most of us know it already, we'll have to have something to do in lectures). I have a gut feeling tomorrow won't result in any conversations, but there are lots of cookies and lots of girls. I even have time. If there is some lady somewhere that knows me already and really really likes me, you'd better tell me before I actually manage to pull of a top score according to Anton (marriage or something like it). I also realised that most of you have no idea how to contact me. My MSN address is axus AT khemri.co.uk and my email sarkalian AT gmail.com I removed the @ symbols and replaced them with AT to stop spambots getting hold of them. No annoying noise today, I got something much much more amusing. The best blonde joke ever (No offense intented to blondes in any way shape or form).

Choc chip cookies work wonders - Monday

I woke up to the dulcet tones of 'Scumbag' by the 'Arctic Monkeys'. I turned this off straight away as they'd wake everyone up. I sat down and closed my eyes for a moment. Next thing I know Aaron has phoned me to check I'm up. I noticed with horror I had fallen asleep within seconds. I immidiatly splashed water over my face to stop it happening again. Aaron persuaded me to get the 0800 bus. I regret getting it as there were no girls on their own or even in small groups there. This meant that I was forced to not try chatting with any. Besides, I was very tired. B101 was dull, the only reason I was there was so that I could chase up the lecturer if he wasn't there, I'm a course rep for a reason. After the B101 lecture I went and did some C. I spent a lot of the time talking with the research student about Neural Networks. He's pretty impressed at my plans and it appears I have the idea about right. I also handed in my Website coursework. Owing to the presence of loads of people nearby, and none of them in any way looking interested in chatting I developed a cunning plan. I would go back, get lunch and then come back and go to Tesco. On the way there Lorna arrived. She said "why don't you look so happy to see me?". I simply said one word "Anton". She laughed a lot as she realised the reason I was there. She did however elaborate on how I was going to find ladies with heavy bags. She said that Tesco was a good place to find them. I saw nobody with any heavy bags at Tesco. However, at the bus stop there were three people. Nathan from my course and also someone else. On a whim I had bought some Chocolate Chip Cookies. I offered them around, Nathan didn't want one but the lady did. I was hoping that would be a good conversation starter but her mobile went and she chatted on it. I got on the bus and made sure there was a space next to me, but she didn't sit there. The situation was dire, I had a whole two cookies left in the open pack and no apparent progress, it was time for a drastic move. I offered the bus driver a cookie but he did not want one. When we arrived at Langstone I stuffed one cookie in my mouth and managed to walk next to this lady and offer her the last cookie. She was taken aback by this gesture, accepted and began talking to me. I had already gotten my mail but thought it'd be best to double check. The lady's name is Dominique and she's from London. Of amazing coincidence there was a guy there from Ruislip, he was on some main road. I forgot to ask what school he went to. Anton congratualted me and gave me some good advice. Don't ask any more random girls. If an oppertunity arises, take it, otherwise it's not a good idea to get a bad reputation. I think he's got a good point so I'll not be keeping score at all. Dinner was nice, after that I went to help set up the sound for the CU. After the meeting we went to the pub and played some Chess. My team won both games, I think my influence was rather useful. I got the bus back, blogged and went to bed. People telling you to turn your sound down It's not happened much yet (just once when it was rather late, I'm quite okay with that). Annoyance Factor - 5 Weirdness Factor - 5 Volume Factor - 10 Ease of Creation - 4 Average - 6

The day gets better and better - Sunday

I got up an hour earlier than I needed to. This was not a problem for me, I'm tough. Myself, Lorna, Briley and Sarah (notice how I randomly scramble the order of the names around each time). Sarah drove us there, oh and Lawrence came too, he had a good christmas. For those just joining us, I do go to church but am not actually a christian. After the service I got some cups of tea for the girls and lots of biscuits (along with a mug full of sugar and some tea for myself) and chatted for a bit then we all went back. I sat in the refectory and as usual on Sundays, got a free dinner. Anton has a theory that since I weight so little they think I need fattening up. Also for those just joining us, Anton is a translator and keeps telling me how to run my love life. I have no problem with this as I'm no expert and he's very funny. After the free lunch I started work on some WoA stuff. In retrospect this was a bad idea as it's 0030 on Monday and I'm still doing CW. I must however admit that I did enjoy talking to several people over MSN. Anton, two Siän's, Aaron (he's in the same boat as me) and random WoA players (all of who were very understanding about me being stressed yesterday). I also introduced Anton to the Siän that's in the CU. I told him very specifically NOT to scare her and spent some time convincing her that he is indeed, harmless. One of the first things he says, "What do you think of Teifion?". I think we all know what he was going to do next... In an attempt to look better (I weigh as much as Anton's rather short wife) I've started doing push-ups and situps. Anton suggested timing them by typing on the keyboard with my nose so that one dip would hit some keys and the next would hit the return key. Lesson of the day, I need to learn to type more interesting messages with my nose... I've recorded a sound from the Ian Lee podcast here and intend to play it to anybody I find boring (or just link them to it). I also converted the sound from Madagascar christmas carol to MP3 and played it a lot, it's very very funny. As for the Ian Lee sound, I've already used it to good effect. Jack came up to my room and knocked on the door, hid and then did it again. I locked the floor door so he couldn't do it again and began phoning and hanging up on him. He unplugged his phone after the third time. I gave it 10 minutes and phoned again, but didn't hang up. I just said nothing. He hung up after about a minute. I did it again but this time, I played the Ian Lee sound and told him it'd be worse if he did it again. Guess what, he didn't. Aaron and I are very tired, we even tried selotaping phones to our heads so that we could talk and work. It didn't work. Ultimatly I can see that I'll be up late monday too, I just know it (CU meeting on monday). Note: Aaron just stapled his finger, I couldn't stop laughing at him. Wish me luck for talking to ladies tomorrow (so far nobody has said anything against it, you either hope I do well or want to laugh at me. That means it's a win win for me). Sound that's out of sync The Madagascar .avi didn't play well on my 5 year old laptop, so I spent about 5 hours converting it to a .mov which is larger but faster. Bad news, there is a 2 second out of sync soundtrack. Annoyance Factor - 10 Weirdness Factor - 10 Volume Factor - 5 Ease of Creation - 0 Average - 6.25

Work work work - Saturday

I managed to pullmyself out of bed at about 1200. This is a lot more impressive when you realise that I went to bed at about 0200 and due to having a very active (but tired) mind, fell asleep about 0400, hence, 6 hours of sleep and 2 of lying in. I spent most of the day working on coursework and finnishing off the last of the WoA stuff. For some reason I'm getting stressed (bad sign, I rarely get stressed) and had to take frequent breaks. Luckily several nice, charming and interesting people chatted to me and I discovered that the Ian Lee podcast is very amusing. Oh, I also snacked on a couple of tunafish sandwiches. I can't use the main WoA website as it is, instead I had to get some of the files that I would use (i.e. the appropriate ones) and also create six, completely RUBBISH pages. An intro page (queue copy and paste from WoA), a photoalbum, TWO intro pages. One about me and one about other people. I also had to have a contact me page and links page. Both were taken almost completely from WoA. I've still got to write a report (no more than 8 or so pages). Based on the aggro that's already gone into this, I think I'll be arguing with the lecturer if I get low marks in it. I know HTML rather well and my pages pass all web-standards checks that they need to. I will of course have to be diplomatic about it. After the Coursework I finnaly finnished my last area of the WoA results. I have no idea why they took so long this turn, but if this continues I'll be looking for ways to speed it up more so (probably limit the number of teams more OR impliment an awsome idea I had, but won't say what it is just yet). I played a lot of quake today and managed to beat one of the levels on maximum difficulty by the simple expediment of kicking two of the three enemies from the server. That said it wasn't a walk in the park, but I still beat a bot on max difficulty. All this boring work has made me long to begin on the othello project sooner, so I will soon. I'll have no idea it works as I won't be able to compile it without cruical stuff, but if I comment it well then I'll be able to fix it fast. More importantly, C is so similar to PHP that I'm considering porting it to my website with some friends afterwards. We have a new person on our floor. You may remmeber that Meloney moved out a few months back. Well now we have Nicholas (not sure if it's spelt right). He's French and is doing something about international. Sadly, he smokes. Speaking of floor mates, a most intersting thing has happened. On thursday Duane got rather drunk, he got SO drunk that he was actually chatted up by a pair of gays. He denys that they are gay, but Sam and myself are finding it a good source of amusement (while not pushing him too far). For those that have given suggestions about talking to ladies on the bus, thank you. I am of course always happy to recieve (sensible, you hear me Bob? SENSIBLE) advice in any area. Whinging I get the nagging feeling that this came up before, well, I'll rename it if it did. Annoyance Factor - 10 Weirdness Factor - 6 Volume Factor - varies (5) Ease of Creation - varies (3) Average - 6