Optimism

I know. I didn't think I was capable of it.

More than anything else, I'm looking forward to not living in this glorified Travelodge. I may have lost count, but I believe it's around 160 days until we can move into our house in Leamington. Here comes an exploration of all the things which will be much better in my new home.

First up, as it's on my mind, laundry. Currently, I have to walk about 50m to the building opposite if I want to wash my clothes. As such, I don't do that nearly often enough. Next year, the washing machine is 5m from my bedroom. Furthermore, my bedroom itself is a lot bigger, will have a sofa in it, a router, a server, some spare monitors, one hell of a printer, possibly a piano and much more wardrobe space and thus much more clothes. The only thing this bedroom has over my future one is its ensuite bathroom.

By some sort of anomalous geographical tragedy, The West Midlands are in the middle of nowhere, despite being in the middle of England. Meriden, Britain's furthest village from the sea, is closer to this University than anything which counts as civilisation. I feel sympathy for Coventry; whereas London is more than experienced in rising from the ashes, Coventry was completely forsaken after the Luftwaffe decided to tear it apart. Perhaps it was thriving and trendy in the '30s. So we have future house's next advantage: location.

Leamington Spa is a lovely little town. Rather deserted, unlike any similar settlement in Tyneside which all clump together to form a kind of sprawling metropolis, Warwickshire's towns are some distance from each other. Further, Leamington Spa has a McDonald's; Whitley Bay does not. Stupid protesting residents.

As a town, it really is quite something, and given that within a five-minute radius there is more than I can properly discuss, I'm going to forsake prose and venture into the hideous world of bullet points:

• Domino's Pizza
• McDonald's
• Every clothes shop imaginable.
• Pizza Hut
• Pizza Express
• Apollo Cinema — which is the nicest cinema I've ever known
• Yet more places that do pizza
• CEX
• Tesco Express
• Swimming Pool
• More quaint parks than anyone would ever need — picnics!
• A copious amount of pubs
• A more copious amount of clubs
• A TRAIN STATION! — I've never lived so close to a train station.
• Curry houses by the dozen

Really, as of August, the only time I have to leave Leamington is when I have lectures. Darned lectures: they take all the fun out of University.

And before I forget, the top five "best things" about my house next year are my housemates.

Yoghurt Pots and String

I think creativity is the tonic of life.

Right now, I should probably be doing work. I get plenty of it. That's not stimulating, though. The end result of a maths assignment is far from new, and undoubtedly not unique due to a count upwards of 300 fellow students who also have to do said work. It's not part of my design, and, besides, who ever enjoyed being told what to do?

I'm not doing work; I'm writing this. It's hardly a short story, or a canvas painting, but it's certainly a start. Really, right now, and at any given time, I simply want to write, paint, sketch, speak, design, build, engineer, play, invent.

Perhaps I played with Lego too much as a kid, and spent way too much time improvising on piano instead of actually learning the boring ABRSM exam pieces.

I like to think of creativity as the most socially acceptable form of nonconformism. Aside from writing, composing, inventing or the like, breaking societal conventions tends to result in being branded things like "kleptomaniac," "nymphomaniac," or, if you're really messed up, "pyromaniac." I can't get arrested for writing a blog... erm... so long as I'm nice about the US Government. You guys rock.

I planned on keeping this post both shorter and with much less self-imposed gravitas and philosophical undertones than my last post, about The Hollow Men. I'll likely go into the kitchen now and make a cardboard box into some kind of dinosaur.

Bangers and mash!

Yeah, guys and gals – no, not gals. Dolls? Nope, 'tis a play. Oh, hang on, reboot, I've got it!

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen! Today, I had some wonderfully reheated sausage and mash with gorgeous onion gravy. I have a tendency to call brown stuff gorgeous, given that it's not faeces. Blue stuff – besides mould, that is – gets tagged "pretty" in the exquisitely complex matrices of Robin James' brain. Anyway, yummy dinner; thanks mother! She's given me a cupcake for afters, but hasn't told me what's in it. It could be spacecake. Mmm, drugs... Here's hoping!

In other news, I am not as good on a rowing machine as I would like! In fact, I'm worse than Tom and Niall. This, ladies and gentlemen^†, is embarrassing. It must be dealt with immediately, or at least in the near future. Maybe I was fatigued today from a piano lesson. They can be quite strenuous!

Finally, I bring such brilliant news: I am totally immune to whichever serotype of rhinovirus the local disease factories – or, as I believe the biological term is, "humans" – gave to me. Excellent! Total immunity, here I come! Apologies to anyone I gave diseases to over the past few weeks.

Here ends Tuesday 5th October. Now to have that prospective spacecake!

^†I'm sticking with that now; apologies to transgenders, although I figure you're covered by the "and"? I don't know. I AM JUST A GUY.

Piano-playing; undead cats.

Illness is almost finished. Ha! Take that parasitic lifeforms! That said, being human, I'm a specimen of possibly the least independent species known to, well, man. That's the first admission to being human I've made in a while. I love the immune system, makes me proud. Long live evolution! Ha, that's quite funny.

Anyway, went rowing tonight, didn't get out though. I did have a decent session on the machines though. I also had my first piano lesson since barely passing grade 4. By rights, I should be a much better pianist than I am in reality. Of course, that's an effect caused by a great lack of effort. I love playing the piano, but not so much practising to impress the ABRSM.

So, that's a little mention for both causality and evolution, two of my favourite scientific concepts. I'd tell you my feelings about Schrödinger's cat, but, appropriately, I'd rather leave you in suspense. Do I like Schrödinger's cat, or do I not? You will never know, therefore it's both! What a very crude depiction of a brilliant concept.

Another thing, it's correct to say both "[the cause] causes [the effect]" and "[the cause] effects [the effect]." You can even slip them into passive voice for more interchangeability!

Good night chums!