The words contained in this here journal may not make much sense and they may not bear any relation to reality but one thing is for sure, they'll contain the word pasty.
Thursday, January 08, 2004
Yep. So it's me. Here I am again. And I think I'm writing because I was too snotty and too lazy to get out of bed this morning to go into uni and collect my chemistry coursework. As such I'm feeling a little tad guilty and figured that doing something very slightly more constructive than playing Freelancer all day would alleviate my penance. Scratch that. All of a sudden I feel no remorse whatsoever as a BT van sporting the broadband logo has just driven past. But nevertheless, as they say on Mastermind "I've started so I'll finish".
Presentation. Frightening thing to hear isn't it? In fact I'm pretty sure even the England forwards (to jump aboard the rugby bandwagon) start to sweat just thinking about it. Being informed that you're going to have to perform a presentation brings about the same wave of gut terror as being told you're about to die and unfortunately, unlike dying, you're still around afterwards to suffer the taunting and mockery. My abject cowardice when it comes to presentations is somewhat at odds with my general philosophy of not worrying about things that aren't worth worrying about. I never worry about whether my train is on time because there's nothing I can do about it. I don't worry about whether my hair looks nice when I'm hanging out with Capps because I really don't think he cares. But I worry something rotten about presentations. Being told I have to do one is bad enough, finding out that I have to do one just two days in advance and that powerpoint isn't playing ball makes me feel physically sick!
And so it came to pass that on Tuesday morning I hurriedly cobbled together some slides and, an hour later, ad-libbed my part of a group presentation on skin cream in front of the Egyptian Queen. The presentation topic was somewhat of a surreal one: as a group of three we had been told to produce a sales pitch for a bathing product that was to be used by the Queen of Egypt no less. We were to work out all the costs involved in making the stuff and work out other stuff with various types of plants and different types of slaves and to include this fascinating information in our sales pitch. Cue cheesy hieroglyphic background for my slides. As it was I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything serious and well presented because not only had I left the planning of my performance until an hour before I was due to start but also because, being me, I am totally incapable of doing ANYthing serious and well presented. Cue pictures of smiling slaves, real ale, and a roast turkey. In the end I got a few laughs and suffered nothing worse than a sudden need for the toilet so I guess it all turned out okay.
Exhausted, it was then on to York for a meeting with Wend. It's quite likely that I was exceeeeedingly tedious company thanks to getting up at half-seven having had a month of lie-ins and I'm sure going to the National Railway Museum wouldn't have helped spice things up for her much but I figured it'd be nicer to wander between steam trains rather than between clothes shops. As it was we ended up wandering between the shops too. And then off to the minster, Clifford's Tower and the like. And also to an eerily deserted Pizza Hut that was devoid of all life besides myself, Wend, a waiter who thought Fanta was brown and a haunted CD player. Well if nothing else I had a wonderful time; it was delightful to spend some time alone with Wend having not done so since she stayed at mine what seems like a year ago. It's certainly put me in a good frame of mind for my impending exams :)
While in York I checked at a cash machine and to my endless astonishment my loan has come through! This is a good thing as I was virtually free of cash and had I not had this shower of money at the eleventh hour I'd have been stranded in York, or worse we wouldn't have been able to have puddings at Pizza Hut. Now with my money I shall do things I have dreamt of for a long time. Then again my parents pay for me to go to Scilly and the F1 comes free aswell. hmmmm.
Talking of dreams I had one last night in which myself, my brother, Jono and Wend all laid in my parents bed watching an extended version of Innerspace. Strange.
