Take me home, country roads

THE PUB QUIZ IS BACK!!!!  For me and my friends at sixth form, he pub quiz became a weekly routine where we'd all pitch up, get fairly drunk for a Monday night before school and generally lose miserably. This has been interrupted by university and so I was happy to be back.

I think we got the lowest score out of everybody.

I had a good time though, good to see my friend P again, and I'm looking forward to next week when hopefully even more people can come

The song today was the only song I recognised in the country and western musIc round

Jack

Welcome to the new déjà vu

Today's been another steady day, I haven't even properly left the house. My brother and dad had a day out to the bike races today, which is fine by me, it's what they're really into. I've done some German work today, but mainly I've just been chilling out.

My bedroom is starting to take shape now. We moved house in November, but because I've been at uni, I've not really spent much time here yet, so I'm happy that it's starting to come together. The only problem is that I live too far away for most of my uni friends to visit :(

I'm fully aware that this blog is fairly uninteresting at the moment, but everything should be better tomorrow :)

Today's song is Alpha Dog by Fall Out Boy. My sister was listening to it earlier and it's such a good song.

<insert funny singing off phrase here>

Jack

Song:  Alpha Dog
Artist:  Fall Out Boy
Album:  Believers Never Die

Well did she make you cry, make you break down, shatter your illusion of love

Today's been my first full day home from Uni. I spent most of it chilling out in bed, not much surprise for me in a lazy mood.

I spent this evening with my brother and old friend the local, and, as the only uni student there, I had lots of drinks bought for me. 'Twas a good night

I am fairly drunk now, and in bed, but today's quote comes from one of my favourite albums, which my parents were playing over tea (dinner for all you southerners)

I promise I'll do a proper catch up tomorrow.

<insert funny sign out phrase>

Jack


Song:    Gold dust woman
Artist:    Fleetwood Mac
Album:  Rumours

And the poets are just kids who didn't make it

Today's been a mixed day, for the same reason. I moved in back home which meant saying goodbye to all my uni friends. It's the end of a long semester, which has been hard work, but really enjoyable as well. I've improved a lot of my friendships and there are a few new people who I now consider close friends after spending time with them since January.

On the other hand, I'm glad to be home. I've missed my family, my Lincolnshire friends and my dog. I'd barely got home before I went out again to celebrate H's birthday. It was a really nice meal, catching up with friends whom I haven't seen for a very long time, but unfortunately, she goes back to uni on Monday :( that's the problem with my uni, my Easter break is later than all my friends', so I'll miss a lot of them. At least I'll get lots of revision done (in theory)

Today's is a short post, mainly because I'm tired, and I forgot to write earlier. The song lyric today is from a Fall Out Boy song of their second album, high I've listened to all the way through 3 and a half times today, and this is the song that jumped out at me today. Probably because I was listening to it whilst packing, and this is the slowest song on the album. I'm currently lying in my bed, about to go to sleep. See you guys tomorrow

<insert witty closing line here>

Jack

Song:          I've Got A Dark Alley And A Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth (Summer Song)
Artist:          Fall Out Boy
Album:        From Under The Cork Tree

Picking insects off plants

Today's been a weird one. I went to university, but missed a lecture and a workshop because I overslept for the former and hadn't done the work for the latter. I went in, planning to do for the entire day, but I hadn't realised that my 1 o'clock class had been cancelled, so I had far too much free time. I had a meeting with my lovely peer mentor with two of my fellow mentees, with whom I am good friends, so that was really nice.

I was supposed to pack today, because tomorrow I'm going home from university, but I was in a weird mood in my virtually empty flat. 3 of my 5 flat mates have already gone home, and the other two was out, so I decided to watch Skins instead. I've only just started watching it this week (7 years behind, I know, shut up), but when C came back we watched the film Downfall with B as I had promised yesterday. Although many of you have never seen this film, many of you will recognise the Hitler meme scene from it (yes it's all in German [original title Der Untergang]). It's a brilliant movie, definitely watch it, and, as students, we naturally decided to turn it into a drinking game. That's why today's post is technically early morning Friday, and I may be slightly drunk at this point.

Today's lyric is a line from Kids by MGMT, but the version I was listening to was the Gabrielle Aplin's (AKA my secret crush) amazing cover. Although it doesn't really reflect today's mood, it also counts as my "what I learned today" thing, and this is fairly embarrassing. Every time I've heard this song since it was released in <after a quick Google search> 2008!!! Really!!! This song is 6 years old!! fuck my life. Anyway, I've always head this line as the obviously much more likely "making incest soft plans". No joke. Not only does that make no sense, I have managed to convince myself for this long that it's just another random line from this song. This is very embarrassing. I wish to hide in a corner. But as there have been no other notable lyrics today, this will have to come out to the world. And I thought my mum was bad with lyrics

Anyway, I've got to go to bed now, I've got to pack before I go to uni tomorrow, so an early morning for Jack -__-

<insert witty end line here>

Jack

Song: Kids
Artist: MGMT                                     Gabrielle Aplin
Album: Oracular Spectacular                YouTube

I've called my friends B and C because they're too drunk to ask if they want to be in the blog. I tried, and they suggested being C-Man and BS, which somehow doesn't work <rolls eyes> light weights. This may be corrected tomorrow, when I ask them properly

Oh are you nervous, like your freshman year? (If you spell it out it's somewhat fabulous)

Today's been a fairly decent day in the life of Jack. I had a Russian oral exam today (hahaha. Stop laughing, it's not that funny). I hate oral exams. I always get really worked up about them, my heart starts racing and my already shoddy concentration span gets even worse. But luckily today, I had a friend to do it with me. And the first part, a play/dialogue, went really well (except for a small error on my behalf, where I thought I asked can I use ты with you* [see below for geeky language explanation of what this is], and instead asked can we fuck?). The follow questions didn't go so well, but I think I managed to do alright, if the examiners could hear me over my heart beating.

I also have a confession to make. On only the second day since the start of attackofthebluehair.blogger.co.uk the blue hair has gone. The bet which I lost was to dye my hair blue for a week, which I kinda liked but I did get called mermaid a lot. But that week ended today, and in order to avoid disapproving grandparents over Easter, I've dyed it black over the top. My poor hair. Dyed or bleached four times in 8 days.... So anyway, tomorrow I may upload some before and after pictures, if I can work out how to do it.

Today's song quote is from a small band called the Summer Set. I saw them live around this time last year and they were soooooooo good. And as I was waiting for my Russian exam, having a bit of a nap in the common and listening to music, this song came on and I knew that it would have to be the quote for today, both being a uni fresher and really nervous. Give them a listen, they're really good, and their cover of Locked Out Of Heaven was amazing. The part in brackets is something a friend said to me today, and I told her that I would name my blog post today after it. But then I remembered it was supposed to be a song lyric, and I can't fail on the second day, so sorry Hannah, but it still gets a mention :D

I think that's all for today, or whatever remains of it (it's currently twenty to twelve here in sunny(?) England) and I really ought to finish before the clock strikes twelve.

I also need to think up a signing out slogan. Something like Peace Out, but not something that sounds quite as stupid, especially coming from my mouth. Comment any suggestions and if I like one, I'll pick it (assuming I get any comments #wishfulthinking)

<insert cool signing out slogan thingy here>

Jack

Song: The Boys You Do (Get Back At You)
Artist: The Summer Set
Album: Love Like This

* In most European languages there is what's called the T-V distinction. What that means is that there are two ways of saying you, one being singular and informal, like you'd use with your mates, and the other for more than one person, or someone you're being polite to, like a stranger or a teacher. It's called the T-V distinction because many languages have the singular form beginning with a T, like tu in French or ты in Russian, whilst the more formal or plural version begins with a V (vous or вы in Russian [yes в is sounded like a v, don't ask why, that's a lesson for another day]). English used to have such a distinction with thee and thou, but we have now lost it, except for in some dialects. This means it can be hard to translate sentences such as Tutoie-moi into English as this would literally be "Use tu when you're saying you to me", so yeah if my sentence that was asterisked in the main content sounds weird, it's because it's nearly untranslatable.

"It's just a spark, but it's enough, to keep me going"

So this is an attempt to start writing a blog and definitely get hugely internet famous and have loads of groupies and this is all definitely going to happen without fail...

I'll try to write something everyday for as long as I can, mainly for my benefit, as sort of a diary, but one that other people can read as well, so people who want to can learn a bit more about the life of Jack. The topic each day may change depending on my mood, but I'll try and stick to "something that I've learned today".

This could be something academically, for example, yesterday I learnt how to say "Never gonna give you up" in Russian (никогда уступлю тебя for anyone even remotely interested) but today's is going to be more musical. The title of each post, by the way, is going to be a line from a song that really got me today, and I'll try to vary them, 'cos otherwise a lot of them would be very similar.

Today I spent a lot of time on my bill at uni, after my last workshop of the day I had a meeting, but there was an hour gap, so lots of time to spend self contemplating and listening to some of my vast collection of music. One of the songs that came up was, as you may have guessed from the title, Last Hope by Paramore, off their latest album. Since I first got the album last year, it's always been one of my favourites (I'm a sucker for a big powerful crescendo in a song), but today I realised how much it applies to me. I often have "dark moods" which are really not fun, especially when they're particularly bad. Occasionally I've thought that I should talk to someone about it, but I always dismiss the idea because:

a) I'm shy as fuck* and

b) I feel like I'm wasting people's time

I never judge them serious enough to warrant prioritising myself over others, so I just plod on, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. But even when I'm at my lowest there's something that always holds me back from doing something stupid. And this song, by Paramore, a band that's not really known for deep meaningful lyrics, gets right to what I feel. There's a spark that makes me hold on, and that made me feel really good about myself. There's not a lyric which doesn't apply to how I feel on most days, but that it's so positive, it's a morale booster.

So I don't want people asking if I'm OK, 'cos I will just brush you off. But a smile is always hopeful, and can be a part of my spark

Jack

* Yeah, some people may take this as a little strange, as I have recently dyed my hair bright turquoise, but I don't mind being the centre of attention, so long as I don't have to talk to people about it. I definitely feel that my life's calling is to be a museum exhibit....


Song: Last Hope
Artist: Paramore
Album: Paramore (2013)