Alas, alack, all that is dandy has to end, and today I flew back in to UKland after an extended weekend at home (there was a proper large-scale family celebration I had to attend). After saying my goodbyes, and making it through the security check unscathed (hope you loved your rock-solid-yet-still-somehow-liquid-according-to-you curry paste that used to be mine, UKland control officer), I seated myself in the optimal position on the aircraft - just behind the magical reserved seats, aka I'd be the first zooming out of there once the plane hit the ground. Just as I made myself comfy, they made their appearance.
The Magical Alliance caught my ear first, then my eye when I turned around to see what was making the racket. The racket was being made by three very fine young gentlemen in Adidas track suits. The leader looked like a carbon copy of one of the dunderheads who used to pick on me in middle school. His right-hand crony seemed to be so stupid that blinking and walking at once must have been too hard for him... I guess he did the leader dude some wrong, as he was seated next to the window. With all the mental capacity the window-sitter could muster, admiring the views outside could literally take his breath away. The third member of the group, and the hero of the story up ahead, sported a ridiculous mohawk-mullet hybrid that would have looked dreadful in the early nineties, let alone now. I just scoffed at their barbed language, writing it off as the lads being excited before embarking on a trip to the depths of the job ladder.
Spurting idiocy apparently wasn't enough. At some point mid flight, the hero of the tale produced a bottle of alcohol. I'm not sure exactly how they distributed the grapefruit vodka or whatever the hell it was, but said hero held the empty bottle when I noticed them taking their party to the next level. Also, somehow, it was him swaying in the general direction of the toilet moments later as his comrades remained seated. As such, I guess that his brain cell didn't think it was a bad idea to down the whole thing. Soon enough, the flight attendants got the guy in check, and he was placed in the magical fenced off reserved seats. Right in front of me.
Lovely.
As The Great And Powerful Rumpy is a walking example of mild-to-average emetophobia, I spent the rest of the flight bunged up in an embryo position with my bag and coat (fuck regulations, no way is it under the seat where there's a fraction of a chance he'll barf on it somehow). Ugh. Not fun at all.
My mood was slightly improved when the boss of the pack went to speak with the fallen. At first they were exchanging bro-hugs, but soon enough it degenerated into a shouting match with the drunken dude doing his best to hit the sober one. Once again, flight attendants had to step in. The Magic Alliance, shattered before the plane even touched down at their final destination. I can't help but have my spirits a little raised.
Now, I'm back in the place where I lived, and one lamb jhallosa later I'm pretty settled in. Conclusions from the journey - take the seat one row behind the reserved seats.
19.2.13
10.2.13
The Update Show!
Piano!
*piano smash*
*muttered* whose idea was this?
Now, with the lamzor asdfmovie reference out of the way, I can move on to an update proper! So, how have I been? Pretty darn good, actually. I'm getting used to UKland, and working at my own pace. There are no jet skis, I'm not stuck in mud - turns out that the work I put into the method is pretty good progress. I'm not lagging behind. Currently relaxing and rebuilding energy after an intense period where I tuned up the method to perfection and made some user-friendly things for it. Working on the paper, but not overexerting myself. My supervisor, who's supposed to be very demanding, is happy. So I'm happy too.
The vagueness of my future direction got spotted when I had my progress review meeting. Thought this was a huge obstacle, and I was crushed for a few days. Then I realised that it isn't actually a problem, and I'll be okay. My supervisors have tons of stuff in need of attention, and I'm more than happy to pull up my sleeves and do the computer work... and then try to parry the biology :P eventually I'll have to delve into that too. Thing is, I don't feel competent in that department, and whatever conclusions I may draw should be taken with a huge, huge dose of reserve.
Insanity fighting - music! Found the second guitar guys for both Nakpat and Green Parrot. Smashing success! Also, bought the Fnord, it's underway now. Pedalboard should be complete soon enough!
More insanity fighting - cooking! Indians and Pakistanis are two of the three top minorities in the UK (the third nation being Poles), so I started experimenting with their spices and whipping up some curries. The butter chicken may have been beginner's luck, but it got the halal roommate seal of approval for the tastiest stuff he ever had. And it rolled from there, usually successes instead of failures. The cookbook mah amazing sis got me for Christmas is a fantastic resource of great recipes, and even the seemingly harder ones are described in great detail and are easy enough to pull off if one just follows the protocol. It's like lab work.
Rumpy presents: The potato-lentil-pea curry extravaganza lab work sheet
(I lernd hoa2bold todai. uproud)
Serves: whoa this is a lot
Reagents vel ingredients:
1. canola oil
2. 2 small onions
3. 1 tsp ginger powder
4. 1 tsp garlic powder
5. 2 tsp ground coriander
6. 1 tsp ground cumin
7. 1 tsp turmeric
8. 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
9. 1 tsp chilli powder
10. 750 g young potatoes
11. 250 g red lentils
12. 700 g tomato passata rustica
13. 400 ml can of coconut milk
14. half a cube of chicken stock
15. 1 tsp garam masala
16. 0.5 tsp salt
17. 0.5 tsp brown cane sugar
18. 150 g green shelled peas
19. 1 tbsp coriander-in-a-tube
20. 3 tbsp lemon juice
Note:
tsp - overflowing teaspoon
tbsp - overflowing tablespoon
Procedure:
1. Hack up potatoes into small, bite-size chunks.
2. Put a bit of canola oil into a big pot and set it on medium flame so it heats up.
3. Hack up onions.
4. Dump onions into pot, stir occasionally.
5. Mix ginger powder, garlic powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, ground cinnamon and chilli powder on a small plate to add them effortlessly later.
6. Once the onions are reasonably cooked (should take about 5 minutes) dump in the spices. Cough, sputter, wonder why there are so many spices and so few onions, stir, cough, sputter, think that you should have put in more oil, keep the uneasy mix on the hob for about a minute.
7. Dump in the hacked potatoes and lentils. Cough and sputter even more as the drastic scent of fried spices gets shifted up by the sudden air movement. Bot starts suffocating next door and accusing of mustard gas creation. Open front door, back door, window, air the thing. Stir the thing in the pot to spread the onions and spices evenly across the taters and lentils.
8. Pour in the tomato passata and coconut milk. The coconut milk is a solid coconut cream layer on top and water on the bottom. Frantically sniff can to see if the thing wasn't spoiled, read label, find a hint to shake before use as separation usually occurs. Ah, ok. Stir the mix, bring it to the boil.
9. Whip up a cup of chicken stock from the half-cube and a cup of boiling water from the kettle. Add that. Add garam masala, salt and the sugar. Throughout stir.
10. Reduce the flame. Watch Slurgi taking a teleporter disguised as an enemy pyro, using the revolver when claiming to be using the enforcer, and missing 8 shots in a row on a rather predictable demoman. Overall, just chillax, relax, max for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
11. Add peas, stir, simmer for another 5 minutes
12. Take off flame, add coriander-in-a-tube and lemon juice. Stir thing. Taste thing. Barely restrain self from instantly eating whole pot of thing. Fry up parathas and eat the thick, delightfully tasty goop with them.
So yeah, tune in next time for more cooking with Rumpy! Maybe, if I feel like it, that is.
Also, another thing that really, really did my mental sanity well - I weeded Fox out of my life once and for all. True, when times were good, she was a great friend. But when times were rough, she was nigh impossible to deal with (as reflected in numerous butthurt posts on this blog), and I just couldn't tune out what she was saying. As it just wasn't working, I terminated it. And all's dandy. She's too busy being adored by her "new friends" to come after me, and I'm okay with this.
Welp, that will be all for now. I need to buy me a performance hat ;) Stay tuned for more ramblings from everybody's favourite curry-devouring, fuzz-loving dissonance overlord in the future!
*piano smash*
*muttered* whose idea was this?
Now, with the lamzor asdfmovie reference out of the way, I can move on to an update proper! So, how have I been? Pretty darn good, actually. I'm getting used to UKland, and working at my own pace. There are no jet skis, I'm not stuck in mud - turns out that the work I put into the method is pretty good progress. I'm not lagging behind. Currently relaxing and rebuilding energy after an intense period where I tuned up the method to perfection and made some user-friendly things for it. Working on the paper, but not overexerting myself. My supervisor, who's supposed to be very demanding, is happy. So I'm happy too.
The vagueness of my future direction got spotted when I had my progress review meeting. Thought this was a huge obstacle, and I was crushed for a few days. Then I realised that it isn't actually a problem, and I'll be okay. My supervisors have tons of stuff in need of attention, and I'm more than happy to pull up my sleeves and do the computer work... and then try to parry the biology :P eventually I'll have to delve into that too. Thing is, I don't feel competent in that department, and whatever conclusions I may draw should be taken with a huge, huge dose of reserve.
Insanity fighting - music! Found the second guitar guys for both Nakpat and Green Parrot. Smashing success! Also, bought the Fnord, it's underway now. Pedalboard should be complete soon enough!
More insanity fighting - cooking! Indians and Pakistanis are two of the three top minorities in the UK (the third nation being Poles), so I started experimenting with their spices and whipping up some curries. The butter chicken may have been beginner's luck, but it got the halal roommate seal of approval for the tastiest stuff he ever had. And it rolled from there, usually successes instead of failures. The cookbook mah amazing sis got me for Christmas is a fantastic resource of great recipes, and even the seemingly harder ones are described in great detail and are easy enough to pull off if one just follows the protocol. It's like lab work.
Rumpy presents: The potato-lentil-pea curry extravaganza lab work sheet
(I lernd hoa2bold todai. uproud)
Serves: whoa this is a lot
Reagents vel ingredients:
1. canola oil
2. 2 small onions
3. 1 tsp ginger powder
4. 1 tsp garlic powder
5. 2 tsp ground coriander
6. 1 tsp ground cumin
7. 1 tsp turmeric
8. 0.5 tsp ground cinnamon
9. 1 tsp chilli powder
10. 750 g young potatoes
11. 250 g red lentils
12. 700 g tomato passata rustica
13. 400 ml can of coconut milk
14. half a cube of chicken stock
15. 1 tsp garam masala
16. 0.5 tsp salt
17. 0.5 tsp brown cane sugar
18. 150 g green shelled peas
19. 1 tbsp coriander-in-a-tube
20. 3 tbsp lemon juice
Note:
tsp - overflowing teaspoon
tbsp - overflowing tablespoon
Procedure:
1. Hack up potatoes into small, bite-size chunks.
2. Put a bit of canola oil into a big pot and set it on medium flame so it heats up.
3. Hack up onions.
4. Dump onions into pot, stir occasionally.
5. Mix ginger powder, garlic powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, turmeric, ground cinnamon and chilli powder on a small plate to add them effortlessly later.
6. Once the onions are reasonably cooked (should take about 5 minutes) dump in the spices. Cough, sputter, wonder why there are so many spices and so few onions, stir, cough, sputter, think that you should have put in more oil, keep the uneasy mix on the hob for about a minute.
7. Dump in the hacked potatoes and lentils. Cough and sputter even more as the drastic scent of fried spices gets shifted up by the sudden air movement. Bot starts suffocating next door and accusing of mustard gas creation. Open front door, back door, window, air the thing. Stir the thing in the pot to spread the onions and spices evenly across the taters and lentils.
8. Pour in the tomato passata and coconut milk. The coconut milk is a solid coconut cream layer on top and water on the bottom. Frantically sniff can to see if the thing wasn't spoiled, read label, find a hint to shake before use as separation usually occurs. Ah, ok. Stir the mix, bring it to the boil.
9. Whip up a cup of chicken stock from the half-cube and a cup of boiling water from the kettle. Add that. Add garam masala, salt and the sugar. Throughout stir.
10. Reduce the flame. Watch Slurgi taking a teleporter disguised as an enemy pyro, using the revolver when claiming to be using the enforcer, and missing 8 shots in a row on a rather predictable demoman. Overall, just chillax, relax, max for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
11. Add peas, stir, simmer for another 5 minutes
12. Take off flame, add coriander-in-a-tube and lemon juice. Stir thing. Taste thing. Barely restrain self from instantly eating whole pot of thing. Fry up parathas and eat the thick, delightfully tasty goop with them.
So yeah, tune in next time for more cooking with Rumpy! Maybe, if I feel like it, that is.
Also, another thing that really, really did my mental sanity well - I weeded Fox out of my life once and for all. True, when times were good, she was a great friend. But when times were rough, she was nigh impossible to deal with (as reflected in numerous butthurt posts on this blog), and I just couldn't tune out what she was saying. As it just wasn't working, I terminated it. And all's dandy. She's too busy being adored by her "new friends" to come after me, and I'm okay with this.
Welp, that will be all for now. I need to buy me a performance hat ;) Stay tuned for more ramblings from everybody's favourite curry-devouring, fuzz-loving dissonance overlord in the future!
7.1.13
Rumpy vs Insanity
Signing in again.
So, what's been up since then? Still fighting an uphill battle against science. Still not feel like I'm winning. Still seeing everybody else zip by on turbo jet skis or something. Still going insane.
How am I combatting the insanity? With routine trips back home for the weekend, about once every 3-4 weeks. Pricey? Not at all. Just buy tickets ahead of time from Wizzair or something. I spent my first weekend home back "on detox", constantly crying and shaking and puking from nerves. Since then it kinda got better. The world as I know it back home isn't going anywhere. Everything is still in place, and it's waiting for me if I fail here. Screw life as Plan B, if I mess up here I just get to go back to the part of the world I feel best in, in the end.
Second insanity-combatting strategy? Starting a band. I intend to get something going in the UK. Coincidentally, I split off my mellow leanings into a project named Nakpat. As such, it'd be perfect if I could create both Green Parrot and Nakpat, but we'll see what comes out... I'm pretty sure the latter won't have any trouble attracting musicians and a putative fan base.
In preparation, I took my pedals from Poland.
RUMPY PEDALBOARD OF AWESOME: Geetar -> Dunlop Crybaby 535q -> TC Electronic Polytune -> Boss OS-2 -> Devi Ever US Fuzz -> Black Arts Toneworks Fnord -> Akai Professional Phase Shifter -> Amp
Said pedalboard requires two purchases to work. I got the Polytune in my back-at-the-motherland music shop, bartering down the price a bit. Love haggling, even with shopkeepers. I still need to get my hands on a Fnord, but the pedal guy will have them back in stock in a few weeks. Hope customs won't be evil and I'll get my hands on the pedal without any issues.
So yeah, UKland still hasn't been fully tamed, and probably never will be, but what can I do. Gotta keep fighting.
So, what's been up since then? Still fighting an uphill battle against science. Still not feel like I'm winning. Still seeing everybody else zip by on turbo jet skis or something. Still going insane.
How am I combatting the insanity? With routine trips back home for the weekend, about once every 3-4 weeks. Pricey? Not at all. Just buy tickets ahead of time from Wizzair or something. I spent my first weekend home back "on detox", constantly crying and shaking and puking from nerves. Since then it kinda got better. The world as I know it back home isn't going anywhere. Everything is still in place, and it's waiting for me if I fail here. Screw life as Plan B, if I mess up here I just get to go back to the part of the world I feel best in, in the end.
Second insanity-combatting strategy? Starting a band. I intend to get something going in the UK. Coincidentally, I split off my mellow leanings into a project named Nakpat. As such, it'd be perfect if I could create both Green Parrot and Nakpat, but we'll see what comes out... I'm pretty sure the latter won't have any trouble attracting musicians and a putative fan base.
In preparation, I took my pedals from Poland.
RUMPY PEDALBOARD OF AWESOME: Geetar -> Dunlop Crybaby 535q -> TC Electronic Polytune -> Boss OS-2 -> Devi Ever US Fuzz -> Black Arts Toneworks Fnord -> Akai Professional Phase Shifter -> Amp
Said pedalboard requires two purchases to work. I got the Polytune in my back-at-the-motherland music shop, bartering down the price a bit. Love haggling, even with shopkeepers. I still need to get my hands on a Fnord, but the pedal guy will have them back in stock in a few weeks. Hope customs won't be evil and I'll get my hands on the pedal without any issues.
So yeah, UKland still hasn't been fully tamed, and probably never will be, but what can I do. Gotta keep fighting.
22.10.12
The Research Cave
So... I've been in the UK for over three weeks now. Guess what, my irrational side was right.
They keep casually flinging around big names of big things like it's adding two numbers. They expect me to read and understand those logorrhea + barbed wire formulas articles. Every single attempt to master anything ends with me having to backtrack five miles and start from the absolute basics of everything imaginable.
I attempted to combat it with creativity. They don't really see a problem with the errors they're making. And I don't have enough stuff in my arsenal to persuade them that it's otherwise.
It's not helping that I'm cooped up in an office with three other people who are doing more-less the same thing for their PhD, and they're all continuing their masters projects. Which, in turn, evolved out of a class they took during their taught masters part. The guy on the left is writing up page after page of bushy integrals like it's nobody's business. The girl behind me is whipping up crazy-ass graphs of shit I probably wouldn't understand. The guy on the right came up with his own skewed distribution for some sort of neural cell process. And his supervisor accepted it. My supervisor just nixed my perfectly-in-sync-with-their-method's-core idea to make it somewhat more compatible with other techniques that are less home-brewed than theirs is.
Also, today's a shit day. Had a pretty epic (one-sided, as usual) fight with Fox yday, the chicken I had instead of fish & chips doesn't exactly like it inside of me, and all my office mates are gone. I have no idea where they are and whether I should be there as well. Still, at least it gives me an excuse to slack off and type this up instead of doing actual work. Plus, it's the standard glum UK morning out of my window.
Fox fights left me a bit battered up back when I was home and in good condition. Considering I'm something of a halfway-snapped-open egg over here, and she was even more hard-hitting than usual, I'm in pieces. And I'm changing my demeanour with her, this time for real.
I miss home. I want to ditch this place and head back, hug my folks, sit in the mountains and never leave. Meet up with all the people I left behind and have fun with them. Like I used to. Before I left it all for some madman's dream of actually being competent and managing. Guess what, now that I get to execute Plan A (even though I'm a Plan B for them), it simply turns out that I'm not good enough for it. After a lifetime of being told by my parents how smart I am, acing GPA's, doing well in competitions... it just turns out I'm not good enough after all.
And that feel will not leave me for the rest of my life, no matter what may happen. That I had a chance and I'm watching myself blow it in slow motion, not for lack of trying (hello 8h office days). Simply because I'm too much of a worthless piece of shit in the end.
Signing out. Hopefully it'll all magically fix itself, but I doubt it.
They keep casually flinging around big names of big things like it's adding two numbers. They expect me to read and understand those logorrhea + barbed wire formulas articles. Every single attempt to master anything ends with me having to backtrack five miles and start from the absolute basics of everything imaginable.
I attempted to combat it with creativity. They don't really see a problem with the errors they're making. And I don't have enough stuff in my arsenal to persuade them that it's otherwise.
It's not helping that I'm cooped up in an office with three other people who are doing more-less the same thing for their PhD, and they're all continuing their masters projects. Which, in turn, evolved out of a class they took during their taught masters part. The guy on the left is writing up page after page of bushy integrals like it's nobody's business. The girl behind me is whipping up crazy-ass graphs of shit I probably wouldn't understand. The guy on the right came up with his own skewed distribution for some sort of neural cell process. And his supervisor accepted it. My supervisor just nixed my perfectly-in-sync-with-their-method's-core idea to make it somewhat more compatible with other techniques that are less home-brewed than theirs is.
Also, today's a shit day. Had a pretty epic (one-sided, as usual) fight with Fox yday, the chicken I had instead of fish & chips doesn't exactly like it inside of me, and all my office mates are gone. I have no idea where they are and whether I should be there as well. Still, at least it gives me an excuse to slack off and type this up instead of doing actual work. Plus, it's the standard glum UK morning out of my window.
Fox fights left me a bit battered up back when I was home and in good condition. Considering I'm something of a halfway-snapped-open egg over here, and she was even more hard-hitting than usual, I'm in pieces. And I'm changing my demeanour with her, this time for real.
I miss home. I want to ditch this place and head back, hug my folks, sit in the mountains and never leave. Meet up with all the people I left behind and have fun with them. Like I used to. Before I left it all for some madman's dream of actually being competent and managing. Guess what, now that I get to execute Plan A (even though I'm a Plan B for them), it simply turns out that I'm not good enough for it. After a lifetime of being told by my parents how smart I am, acing GPA's, doing well in competitions... it just turns out I'm not good enough after all.
And that feel will not leave me for the rest of my life, no matter what may happen. That I had a chance and I'm watching myself blow it in slow motion, not for lack of trying (hello 8h office days). Simply because I'm too much of a worthless piece of shit in the end.
Signing out. Hopefully it'll all magically fix itself, but I doubt it.
26.9.12
Just prior to leaving...
Welp, the time's here. I'm gonna be heading off to the UK in a ricketty steel box with engines in just over 24 hours. And I won't lie, it's stressful.
I'm justified in being freaked out. After all, I lived with my family until now. I studied at a local university. Now I'm skipping the masters step, going to a somewhat more prestigious university, and getting away from mah folks at the exact same time. If that's not a leap, what is?
There's the stress of "will I be adequate academically". I downed a ton of articles. I read them. They were scientific logorrhea hiding behind barbed-wire formulas. As such, I familiarized myself a bit with how stuff works from an extremely basic standpoint to not come in empty-handed. I'm usually quick to grasp stuff that's presented in a friendly manner, and they know I'm an interdisciplinary weirdo, so my rational side is telling me all will be well. My irrational side is scared.
And, obviously, I'll miss my family. There's times when we quarrel, but who doesn't. Mom's concerned whether I'll be able to handle being in charge of my life, but I think that's not really a problem. I'm asked to make Excel cells red (from within a program), I manage to learn to do it and pull it off, even though it's only for visual purposes. Whenever I'm home alone, I don't wreck up the place, I feed myself, I clean up, I know how to operate a laundry machine and use an online bank account (to pay stuff). So I guess I'll do fine.
The world is doing everything its might to make me feel better. It's feeding me good music (new Bucket trio of discs is his best thing in ages, new Biffy is surprisingly un-shit by their major label standards, and I discovered Voivod's awesomeness three years too late). It's letting me socialize with people, "closing the pages" of my life here. Slowly saying farewell to everything and everybody. Already said farewell to the mountain house, my good friend from down south, Lillien... ugh. This is pretty damn tough. But, excluding the nerves from the leap, I'm in surprisingly good psychic condition. So, I'll have to use it to my advantage and have a good start there. The good friend from down south reminded me of a happy time from around 2004-2005, when I could walk up to anybody and go "I don't know you, I'm Rumpy, who are you?"... it was a different time. But I'm reconnecting with some of those vibes. The meetups with fellow bronies helped, as did all those gatherings and some inner mental closure.
Signing off, almost certainly for the last time from Poland for a while. Anxious like shit, but rather confident in the end. Rumpy.
I'm justified in being freaked out. After all, I lived with my family until now. I studied at a local university. Now I'm skipping the masters step, going to a somewhat more prestigious university, and getting away from mah folks at the exact same time. If that's not a leap, what is?
There's the stress of "will I be adequate academically". I downed a ton of articles. I read them. They were scientific logorrhea hiding behind barbed-wire formulas. As such, I familiarized myself a bit with how stuff works from an extremely basic standpoint to not come in empty-handed. I'm usually quick to grasp stuff that's presented in a friendly manner, and they know I'm an interdisciplinary weirdo, so my rational side is telling me all will be well. My irrational side is scared.
And, obviously, I'll miss my family. There's times when we quarrel, but who doesn't. Mom's concerned whether I'll be able to handle being in charge of my life, but I think that's not really a problem. I'm asked to make Excel cells red (from within a program), I manage to learn to do it and pull it off, even though it's only for visual purposes. Whenever I'm home alone, I don't wreck up the place, I feed myself, I clean up, I know how to operate a laundry machine and use an online bank account (to pay stuff). So I guess I'll do fine.
The world is doing everything its might to make me feel better. It's feeding me good music (new Bucket trio of discs is his best thing in ages, new Biffy is surprisingly un-shit by their major label standards, and I discovered Voivod's awesomeness three years too late). It's letting me socialize with people, "closing the pages" of my life here. Slowly saying farewell to everything and everybody. Already said farewell to the mountain house, my good friend from down south, Lillien... ugh. This is pretty damn tough. But, excluding the nerves from the leap, I'm in surprisingly good psychic condition. So, I'll have to use it to my advantage and have a good start there. The good friend from down south reminded me of a happy time from around 2004-2005, when I could walk up to anybody and go "I don't know you, I'm Rumpy, who are you?"... it was a different time. But I'm reconnecting with some of those vibes. The meetups with fellow bronies helped, as did all those gatherings and some inner mental closure.
Signing off, almost certainly for the last time from Poland for a while. Anxious like shit, but rather confident in the end. Rumpy.
12.8.12
It's gonna be alright
Long time no post yet again. With reason though - I sank into a mental stupor following the scholarship rejection and it took a hefty dose of Team Fortress 2, ponies, Futurama and other shit to kill off any semblance of thought that may have formed in my head. It was essentially the post-breakup mental doomride all over again, and it took me quite some time to stomach the failure. I felt bad that people wrote me recommendations and all that, they tried their best and all in all it didn't work out.
Eventually, I settled into Plan B. The second university may not be as prestigious, but it's a tried-and-true option, and I'll have friends there to make the start easier, all that jazz. Afterwards, I can grab some sort of PhD and be settled in for life...
...and then guess what happens? Mom keeps bugging me about buying plane tickets to fly in for Christmas, so I log into my gmail account which I use to correspond with said university. It's been forever since I signed in, as I wasn't expecting any mail from them and all my other business is handled by my Polish email (which bounces off UK university email hosts like a charm). And guess what I see? University #1 comes back knocking, offering me a fully funded PhD spot starting in October. Guess the time stamp? A month before I logged in.
And this is where the crazy ride kicks in. I write them back, turns out the spot is still available, so they ship me an offer, and it turns out that I'd still need to redo my English language certificate. As you can probably tell from my posts, I know how English works, and I do have a "valid for life" certificate to prove it. Not good enough. As the whole course of action is such short notice, I apply for a waiver. The waiver thing starts going and the UK application nature kicks in immediately - here, have this article, whip up a summary, plus you'll get a phone interview. I whip up a summary, and it's been over a week since the phone interviewer was supposed to get in touch with me to schedule the thing.
Clock. Is. Ticking.
I can lose my down payment at the other university if these dudes don't get their stuff together and finally give me a clear green or red light. This limbo is extremely stressful, and the fact I'd bypass masters and get injected directly into PhD ain't helping soothe my nerves. I was freaking out over it non stop, and I was supposed to go a BBQ over at a friend's place yesterday to socialize a bit and calm down.
Guess what. I spent most of the BBQ walking around like a dope, distressed by truly disdainful power metal playing from the loud speakers, and trying to avoid the gaze of a rather hot female friend of his who was invited as well. Her Witty Line Of The Evening? Bronies need more sexual action. Easy for her to say, with her cover girl visage and callipygous posterior. Whatever droplet of sex appeal that may have been hiding in me got sucked out when I got my hair cut. Once the ordeal was over, I got my ass over to the train station. After absorbing the urban decay and perfect silence (stirred only by my footsteps) for half an hour, I got on the platform. Five minutes passed. Ten. The train was supposed to be here by now. I check the schedule again. Guess what, faggot - the train doesn't come on saturdays. Only saturdays, mind you. And that was the last train of the day. As such, no return to the mountains for me.
I hitched the next train out of there to the main train hub and went to where I usually live, seeing it for the first time in about a month and a half. My computer and primary guitar are in the mountains, so I dusted off the ancient lapper I used to chat with my ex. Glacial efficiency and a ton of toxic memories at their finest. The whole fiasco with the schedule left me further distressed, and I had trouble maintaining any semblance of composure - everything was just welling up and I had trouble imagining how the situation could get worse. It got worse when I woke up at 3am with a raging stomachache, as if a xenomorph was preparing to make its appearance. Cool.
Come morning, I was wiped and shaky. For whatever reason, I picked up my old classical guitar. I played Beneath. And shit got better.
Beneath may be a song about unrequited love and whatnot, but it got some vibes in my head. Vibes that have been gone for a long time. I felt like Rumpy again. The future is in the future, and I'm doing what I can to prepare myself for it. It doesn't matter all that much if I go to University A or University B, I'm continuing with my education. And music is an amazing thing... but I was well aware of that even when the vibes were gone. I need to finish up Big Axe, it's been a while.
I recorded a spontanous, horrible, horrible Mike Johnson cover with sour notes, rhythm fuckups and overpowering microphone static. Who gives a shit. Life's gonna be okay. I'll just Wait & See ;) Signing out, hopefully the next post will be 100% optimistic.
Eventually, I settled into Plan B. The second university may not be as prestigious, but it's a tried-and-true option, and I'll have friends there to make the start easier, all that jazz. Afterwards, I can grab some sort of PhD and be settled in for life...
...and then guess what happens? Mom keeps bugging me about buying plane tickets to fly in for Christmas, so I log into my gmail account which I use to correspond with said university. It's been forever since I signed in, as I wasn't expecting any mail from them and all my other business is handled by my Polish email (which bounces off UK university email hosts like a charm). And guess what I see? University #1 comes back knocking, offering me a fully funded PhD spot starting in October. Guess the time stamp? A month before I logged in.
And this is where the crazy ride kicks in. I write them back, turns out the spot is still available, so they ship me an offer, and it turns out that I'd still need to redo my English language certificate. As you can probably tell from my posts, I know how English works, and I do have a "valid for life" certificate to prove it. Not good enough. As the whole course of action is such short notice, I apply for a waiver. The waiver thing starts going and the UK application nature kicks in immediately - here, have this article, whip up a summary, plus you'll get a phone interview. I whip up a summary, and it's been over a week since the phone interviewer was supposed to get in touch with me to schedule the thing.
Clock. Is. Ticking.
I can lose my down payment at the other university if these dudes don't get their stuff together and finally give me a clear green or red light. This limbo is extremely stressful, and the fact I'd bypass masters and get injected directly into PhD ain't helping soothe my nerves. I was freaking out over it non stop, and I was supposed to go a BBQ over at a friend's place yesterday to socialize a bit and calm down.
Guess what. I spent most of the BBQ walking around like a dope, distressed by truly disdainful power metal playing from the loud speakers, and trying to avoid the gaze of a rather hot female friend of his who was invited as well. Her Witty Line Of The Evening? Bronies need more sexual action. Easy for her to say, with her cover girl visage and callipygous posterior. Whatever droplet of sex appeal that may have been hiding in me got sucked out when I got my hair cut. Once the ordeal was over, I got my ass over to the train station. After absorbing the urban decay and perfect silence (stirred only by my footsteps) for half an hour, I got on the platform. Five minutes passed. Ten. The train was supposed to be here by now. I check the schedule again. Guess what, faggot - the train doesn't come on saturdays. Only saturdays, mind you. And that was the last train of the day. As such, no return to the mountains for me.
I hitched the next train out of there to the main train hub and went to where I usually live, seeing it for the first time in about a month and a half. My computer and primary guitar are in the mountains, so I dusted off the ancient lapper I used to chat with my ex. Glacial efficiency and a ton of toxic memories at their finest. The whole fiasco with the schedule left me further distressed, and I had trouble maintaining any semblance of composure - everything was just welling up and I had trouble imagining how the situation could get worse. It got worse when I woke up at 3am with a raging stomachache, as if a xenomorph was preparing to make its appearance. Cool.
Come morning, I was wiped and shaky. For whatever reason, I picked up my old classical guitar. I played Beneath. And shit got better.
Beneath may be a song about unrequited love and whatnot, but it got some vibes in my head. Vibes that have been gone for a long time. I felt like Rumpy again. The future is in the future, and I'm doing what I can to prepare myself for it. It doesn't matter all that much if I go to University A or University B, I'm continuing with my education. And music is an amazing thing... but I was well aware of that even when the vibes were gone. I need to finish up Big Axe, it's been a while.
I recorded a spontanous, horrible, horrible Mike Johnson cover with sour notes, rhythm fuckups and overpowering microphone static. Who gives a shit. Life's gonna be okay. I'll just Wait & See ;) Signing out, hopefully the next post will be 100% optimistic.
21.5.12
A rose among potatoes and other tales of woe
Long time no post. So, as I'm running out of things to procrastinate with, time for another post here to pretend this is alive.
The main thing that happened since my last post? I didn't get a scholarship, and as such I'm not going to the fancy-ass UK uni in spite of being accepted. But hey, the costs are insane and we're not exactly made of money. And raising money there in order to cover costs wouldn't be that easy.
As such, I'm going to another UK uni, along with nine other students from my current uni. It's less fancy-ass, but it does come with a wimpy scholarship and no tuition fee. Thus, the required financial investment is less overwhelming and can be covered.
I need to get out of this university I'm in right now. My undergrad studies were okay... nothing to write home about, but pretty bearable. But the masters studies are horrible. Truly, undisputably horrid. Two times a week I feel like giving a damn... two subjects are actually worth listening to. The rest range from mind-numbingly boring drivel to incompetent idiots rampaging around unchecked (I should be fearing for my academic life, as hell knows - maybe these dunces will decide to fail me). And I have to pass all this shit in order to go study in the UK. Just fucking amazing.
In order to flee from my ever-encompassing depressive thoughts, I fled into Team Fortress 2. I play more than is healthy, and I still suck at it like mad, but it makes it easier to stop thinking about the shit surrounding me. About the fact that I'm a Forever Alone, about the fact that once again my high aim ended up dropping me on top of the nearby heap of manure. About the fact that my dream of making music for a living won't ever come true because I'm just too weird and idiotically noncomformist.
I don't even listen to much music lately. Burning a hole in Dick Valentine's solo acoustic effort (hence the title of the post). It's amusing how much moods the guy covers over the course of a single chord-driven, near-minimalist record. Thus, a tip of the hat to my current model of rose from a royal potato on the sidelines. Signing out, until next time.
The main thing that happened since my last post? I didn't get a scholarship, and as such I'm not going to the fancy-ass UK uni in spite of being accepted. But hey, the costs are insane and we're not exactly made of money. And raising money there in order to cover costs wouldn't be that easy.
As such, I'm going to another UK uni, along with nine other students from my current uni. It's less fancy-ass, but it does come with a wimpy scholarship and no tuition fee. Thus, the required financial investment is less overwhelming and can be covered.
I need to get out of this university I'm in right now. My undergrad studies were okay... nothing to write home about, but pretty bearable. But the masters studies are horrible. Truly, undisputably horrid. Two times a week I feel like giving a damn... two subjects are actually worth listening to. The rest range from mind-numbingly boring drivel to incompetent idiots rampaging around unchecked (I should be fearing for my academic life, as hell knows - maybe these dunces will decide to fail me). And I have to pass all this shit in order to go study in the UK. Just fucking amazing.
In order to flee from my ever-encompassing depressive thoughts, I fled into Team Fortress 2. I play more than is healthy, and I still suck at it like mad, but it makes it easier to stop thinking about the shit surrounding me. About the fact that I'm a Forever Alone, about the fact that once again my high aim ended up dropping me on top of the nearby heap of manure. About the fact that my dream of making music for a living won't ever come true because I'm just too weird and idiotically noncomformist.
I don't even listen to much music lately. Burning a hole in Dick Valentine's solo acoustic effort (hence the title of the post). It's amusing how much moods the guy covers over the course of a single chord-driven, near-minimalist record. Thus, a tip of the hat to my current model of rose from a royal potato on the sidelines. Signing out, until next time.
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