Eventful

Is one word to describe the last month or so.

For starters, the great West Powburn internet reality experiment (i.e, my flatmates' worryingly effective mass-stalking of me),has come to an end, as it started to freak me out a bit much. People I've never met knowing my every move was a tad much...

What else? I've played a great deal of hockey, had something of a rediscovery of my form at the start of the season (with two goals, including the winner, in our win over Aberdeen on Sunday), I've been up to Aberdeen a couple of times to see the lovely Natalia, done a shedload of reading, made vague plans for New Year, been home for a weekend, celebrated numerous peoples' birthdays, bought a new hockey stick after using my old one to death, seen the fantastic new Bond film, drunk a large amount of tea, realised that people still read this despite me never updating it...okay, having typed that I realise that none of it's that exciting, but I'm a 4th year at Uni and I'm busy!

On that front, I've applied for teacher training next year, and have also had it suggested to me that I should apply for a PhD next year, an option that I'm also considering. Not sure which I'll go for, but I'm going to apply for both... :)

Not much else going on at the moment - two weeks of term left, one exam left (that counts for nothing, just like the one I had on Tuesday) then going home for a few weeks over Christmas. I've got a slightly concerning number of essays to hand on for January, so I'll probably be doing those for the forseeable future...

The wonder of the internet...

It seems my flatmate has, in one of his more elaborate practical jokes, set up a small (but growing!) internet community set up to watch and note my every move! This is something of a step up from his pranks in first year - while padlocking my boxers in a drawer, and ductaping my door shut were amusing, this is altogether more elaborate! It is in jest, he's not actually stalking me, but he's trying to freak me out. It's working!

It's also one of the more interesting things that's happened recently - between work, hockey, seeing the lovely Natalia and everything else I've been pretty busy! Hockey's been pretty good, have gotten my confidence in my shooting back, thanks to working on it for a couple of weeks, and I feel pretty good all round! Uni's more work, but it's not so bad. Got a pile of reading up to my eyeballs though.....no really important hand-ins 'till January though!

That said, there are 4 on the same day in January...

Back at Uni...

...so I am. Still not exactly "regular" updating pace, but I've been busy.

So, as I happen to have a free few minutes just now, as I sit sipping a large mug of frothy coffee, I may as well let you know what I've been up to! It's Week 2 of Semester 1 of Uni, and my timetable is spectacular....ly empty. Seriously, this week I have 5 hours of classes. Next week's busy, and I have 9. Alas, my numerous free afternoons are taken up with a mountainous reading list, so I really shouldn't brag!

Life's still treating me fairly well in general. Got my new car, which is awesome - way more responsive and fun to drive than anything I'd owned before (and for those of you familiar with Betty, you'll know that that's not actually too hard....). It's sweet, and called Heather. Me and Les drove her up from just north of London the other week, which was cool, as everybody loves a road trip :)

Been playing a great deal of hockey recently too - the inaugural game of the Scottish Universities Roller Hockey League is next Sunday, and I'm pretty excited about it! My first competitive game as a forward (with one tournament a couple of years ago being the only exception, and that was because we were short of forwards!), could be interesting...

Anyway, I'm going for short-and-fairly-often updates, so I'll leave my rant about bloody-4x4-drivers-driving-like-idiots-in-the-middle-of-town for later.

;)

This is getting daft...

I've said this plenty times, but I actually *am* going to start updating this properly.

Anyway, I've had an awesome month and a half. For starters, I was in Edinburgh for the Festival for 4 weeks. My reason for being there was largely cash-related, in that my entire employment for the summer was in those 4 weeks...on my rickshaw. Oh yeah, ridiculous as it sounds, I actually had a fantastic time. It's brilliant exercise, pretty damn good money, and an excuse to sit outside in the sun all day talking to people. What's not to like? Okay, the pain my legs felt while cycling people up the Mound was a bit harsh, but nothing some Deep Heat couldn't take care of...

Point is though, that I earned some cash and got into possibly the best shape I've ever been in (in anticipation of playing hockey again, which I missed *loads* last year), while being in one of my favourite cities in the world for the 4 weeks it goes totally insane. The Festival is great fun, and while I was busy most of the time I did get to see some pretty cool shows.

Bill Bailey - doing his "Steampunk" show, he was hilarious. Best comedian I've seen. How he comes up with the stuff he comes up with is beyond me...

Improverts - not specifically a Festival thing, but a student thing. I'd somehow not seen them before, despite a good friend of mine practically living in Bedlam, their venue. Improvised comedy a la "Whose line is it anyway?", and had me in stitches...

Clerks II - the Kevin Smith film, premiered at the film festival, with a Q&A with Kevin Smith afterwards, which was very cool. The film was hilarious, offensive, obscene, and brilliant :)

Last thing was the "TransWorld Orchestra". An act which, going by the name, you wouldn't necessarily think "Experimental dance music performed live with nothing but a drum kit and a didgeredoo". However, that's exactly what it was, and it was oddly entertaining!

Anyhoo, I'm back home for a few days before I start getting ready for Uni again. I'm nearly finished the sodding essay that I didn't really do much on in August, so that's good. Can't really be arsed with it anymore, but it's almost done! It'll be done by Monday, as on Tuesday I'm going back to Edinburgh. On Wednesday, incidentally, I'm flying to London with my flatmate to pick up my Aunt's car, which is then becoming *my* car. I'm rather excited :)

Lastly, I'd forgotten how much I love hockey. Those who know me won't exactly be surprised at this, but after getting back to practice with those of my teammates who are around over the summer, my enthusiasm for it has never been stronger. Maybe it's the fact that I'd not played for months, but damn. What's even better is that I have a new challenge (playing as a forward), and thanks to my "job", I'm in the best shape I think I've ever been. 4 weeks of cycling will beef up the leg muscles a fair bit, and I feel fast...and what's even *better* is that we have a properly organised Scottish Uni league to look forward to this year, for the first time ever.

Anyway, that's about it. I'll stop ranting about how much I love hockey. Until after practice next week, no doubt...

Guns 'n Roses

It's been a while, however I feel last Friday night is worth ranting about.

Went to see the new look Guns 'n Roses in Glasgow. Now, I like them...but probably wouldn't have gone to see them were it not for a friend of mine suggesting it. I thought, why not? Anyway, I'd kindof not realised it was so soon sometime in the middle of last week, then got a tad excited.

Anyhow, long story short - two friends of mine and I drove to Weegieland on Friday night, and I saw one of the best gigs I've seen in my life. Despite a truly terrible support band, Guns were amazing.

Honestly, I really wasn't sure what to expect from them. I had visions of it being somewhat past-it jaded rock star not being that bothered and not having much left of his original band anyway...man was I wrong.

Let's go from the start - while there was a really long wait between the really-not-very-good Bullet For My Valentine and GnR, this only really served to get the crowd more into it. When it got to the stage that instead of cheering the gap between the songs on the house sound system, the crowd were booing them...down go the lights, and one of GnR's many new guitarists starts belting out the intro to Welcome to the Jungle...it was superb. And in many years of going to gigs, I've never seen a crowd go as *mental* as they did when they came on. It helped that we were about 15 feet in front of the middle of the stage :)

They came on at about five to ten, and didn't leave 'till after half past midnight - hell of a long show. Every so often there'd be breaks for the band members to drink etc and one guy would stay out and solo for a few minutes (highlight was Dizzy Reed on the piano on his own, before November Rain)

Axl was absolutely unbelievable - his voice is, if anything, better than it used to be. Nobody can sing like that, but it was the energy that he showed that surprised me - he was never standing still. For an older guy, he bounded about the stage like it was 20 years ago. He's a superb frontman, and somebody I had down as a bit of a tool beforehand - came accross as a decent guy, who was clearly in a fantastic mood and enjoying himself.

The new lineup sounds great, much as I didn't expect to say so! 3 guitarists, all of whom sounded fantastic (plus the other mentioned above!), 8 or 9 of them in total (the 9th being Izzy Stradlin, who made a return for a few songs), and they sounded absolutely massive.

Setlist was this -
Welcome to the Jungle, It's So Easy, Mr Brownstone, Live and let die, Better, Robin Solo, Sweet Child o' Mine, Knockin' on Heavens' door, Dizzy Solo, The Blues, You Could be mine, Richard Solo into Beautiful, Out ta get me, Ron Solo(Don't Cry), Blues Jam, November Rain, Think About You, Used To Love Her, Patience and Nightrain all with Izzy.

Madagascar, Robin Solo and Paradise City as an encore.

Particular highlights were Dizzy's piano solo, the solo guitar only version of Don't Cry, with the crowd singing...and pretty much everything else, if I'm honest. Over two and a half hours, it was awesome.



Anyway, that's that rant done - when I get a copy of the photos and videos my friend Lee took then I shall post them. I've seen a few, and they came out really well, including a video of the insanity when Welcome to the Jungle started :)

(But for now, I found a couple of videos on YouTube. Watch them - )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0NPZjekmnM&search=Guns%20Roses - Welcome To The Jungle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inwVvbhFslM - Sweet Child O' Mine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeqH4gVC098&search=Guns%20Roses - November Rain

...

Man, have I been busy.

Aside from a not-particularly-exciting-but-useful-and-necessary stint in the Uni library in Edinburgh the other day to get more essay-related work done, I've been up to rather a lot.

Firstly, there's my flat in Edinburgh. It's ace. It's certainly an improvement on where I lived in second year, a flat that has been dubbed "Little Chechnya" by my flatmate. Decent size, nice rooms, clean. All of which are a marked improvement. Plus, I have a kitchen that you can actually fit more than one person in. Bonus.

I also got "training" for my work in August (which involves riding rickshaws round Edinburgh). The Royal Mile is not fun to cycle up, but the rest was grand. So now I've got a month and a bit to get myself into better shape to make sure that I don't actually die...

I've been watching some of the World Cup (not much of a football fan, but the World Cup's good fun), and marvelling at the morons that ITV subject us to, and being amused that each of the three non-native speakers of English that the BBC have had in as pundits (Leonardo, Marcel Dessaile and Ruud Guilit) can be more articulate than Ian Wright and Alan Hansen put together. Last night I also marvelled at a refereeing performance that saw one Croatian getting booked 3 times before finally getting sent off...

In slightly more important sporting events though, I watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals the other night, which was superb. Carolina wins their first championship, and I don't end up going to bed until nearly 4...

I've decided that I want to learn Spanish. I've been debating learning a third language for a while, as it's something I really want to do, and Spanish fits the bill on numerous counts. It's useful (spoken by lots of people!) and it's something I'd be able to teach were I to go into teaching (once I aquire a decent qualification in it, of course).

I've discovered the rather fantastic music of Silbermond, a band from Germany.

So it's been a fairly hectic couple of weeks. I've now got a month and a bit before I start "work", in which I want to get my two essays properly finished, polished up, bibliographies written and all that jazz...

Bonnie Scotland....

Oh yeah, I'm back :)

It's been a couple of (busy) days since I flew back on Wednesday. The actual trip back was fairly uneventful, aside from a rather frantic run through Stansted airport. I mean, I'm flying back on the day that half of England's flying to Germany.....I made my flight with roughly 5 seconds to spare. Score.

Anyway, my last week in Austria was eventful - in between moving out of my flat and going out an awful lot, we fitted in a wee trip to Bad Gastein, a wee town in the Alps. Basically it's full of big thermal spas, and surrounded by mountains. It's an odd feeling - standing outside in the snow (it's June!!!) wearing nothing but swimming shorts, surrounded by enormous mountains...it was fantastic. The thermal pools, the saunas (with a worrying compulsorary-nakedness policy...), it was grand. My last two days were spent kicking around Vienna, seeing people, going out, doing things I'd not yet done - also great fun. I love that city, it's truly fantastic, and I miss it. I didn't even live there, but I was there often enough :)

But anyway, being back's great - I miss Austria loads, as I had a fantastic life there, but home's home. I'm still not properly settled in, in that I've yet to unpack, but it's nice. I've been busy - spent yesterday playing tennis, seeing friends in town, playing volleyball on the beach then going to the pub. The last bit was particularly nice, as I'd not yet experienced the lovely smoke-free pubs of Scotland. Love it :)

I'm currently sitting listening to the fantastic new Less Than Jake album, which is really very good. Good for the nice sunny weather too...

Anyway, I should post often enough in the summer once I'm back on the planet (metaphorically) and organised. No employment for me 'till August, when I'm off to Edinburgh to ride a rickshaw for the hordes of tourists around during the festival. No, really.