Tuesday 24 May 2011

And so third year comes to a close...

...I have finished my third and final year of University.


I haven't been on here for awhile and it has been because since my birthday work, life and sleeping has taken a frontseat.  Yeah that might seem a bit weird but when you get to dissertation time nothing but the things that focus you on to work and then after that it is all about trying to have a bit of fun after all the pain of 4000, 3500, 3000, 7000 and a 2000 essay most of which are due in the same day.  The readings, the research, the writing, the editing, the re-writing and the re-editing all take your toll along with the late nights, the lack of sleep and the fact that from the second day of lent to two days after lent I had been sober! that was a length of 44-days.  And a bloody help it was in trying to focus on essays. I think I went to more parties without drinking than I did with drinking, which is certainly not a good thing.

Along with the general essays, my dissertation proved to be extremely difficult and extremely time-consuming.  The amount of Relentless (Energy drinks that come in Pint-sized cans) that were drunk during the duration of my dissertation and assignmnets must've had enough energy to power a small car from Lambert Street to Cottingham Road... in other words, a lot of energy.  The diet that had been taken on during easter holidays (the two weeks I was home with the parents in Belgium) was ruined on day one of coming back to Hull. 

As I approached the end of the year and subsequently the end of my dissertation, I began to feel fed up with everything university related.  I began to give up on the essays I was writing and to hide away from them.  However this thankfully didn't last long and I eventually plucked up the courage and strength to finish off and from therein out I became a Graduate (all things considered).  So to all those who have read this and continued to read and wonder how third year went: It went ok! It wasn't easy, but it didn't kill me.  It wasn't boring but it never beat the previous years and it was never fully educational academical but it was fully educational in the capacity of a lifestyle and of the future.  The future is grim but hey I'm from Grimsby, the future's got nothing on me. Keep tuned for a new blog on the search for a job and a place to leave post-graduation. Take care.

Joe Anderson

Thursday 24 February 2011

Things are changing.. but can I keep them positive or will they destroy?

I promise it's not all doom and gloom.  However it is 4.04a.m on Thursday the 24th of February, two days before my twenty-first birthday and I'm sat at my desk thinking.. what have I accomplished at this self-proclaiming moment?

Your 21st birthday is that final "Man-up" moment, if you don't grow up and become a man now.. when will you ever?  So the question for me really is "Have I 'Manned-Up'? Or do I need to anytime soon?". 

There are a lot of things changing for me at the moment.   Personally the biggest one for me is that for the first time ever, the desire to succeed is finally paying off.  For the first time ever I have recieved an outstanding grade ... infact two outstanding grades.  I got my first ever first at University and my first ever modular first too.  this puts my Average for this year so far at 63.5% so far (2 completed modules out of 6) and including last years average at I think 57.7% which is on track for a 2.1 overall and will stand me in good stead for life after university.  But with every silver-lining there must be a cloud right?  And for me that cloud is always "Was that a false-hope?" I don't want this year to be like my sociology A-levels where I got an A in one module and then ended up with a D overall because I just took my foot off the gas and expected them to just fall into place. I can't afford to do that but at the same time I'm terrified of the future that I'll just shrink into my nuclear-shell and hope that everything blows over.  So for my own-emo sake I'm hoping that my 21st birthday will that mental kickstart (or my friends' voices telling me ...) to MAN UP. 

So in order to help myself "man-up" I'ma head to Rome to meet up with my father and enjoy a weekend of Drinking, Eating and Watching rugby and not just any game, not just any rugby, but ITALY VS WALES in the SIX NATIONS!!! A proper lads weekend just doing and watching the things we've been enjoying for many a fine year.  It is a weekend that I'll never forget and it will tee me up for potentially one of the best ever week of my life... quickly followed by months of pain and agony (dissertation, essay, case study and other works).  Next week I will have two days of recovery from Rome before my best-friend comes over to catch-up, chill, party and wreak general havoc before the rest of my best-friends come over for some pretty serious celebrations.

The reason for the slightly emo/self-destructive title to this entry is because of the music I've been listening to lately.  On my facebook the other day, Soundcloud posted a playlist of 40 songs don't know who by or why but there were some including one called heartpiece2 that absolutely sounds like a work of art.  It uses quotes from american politicians (I believe one of the quotes to be from Nixon destroying Senator Joe McCarthy's final political power) and also a simple but evocative quote from the character Tyler Durden (off of Fight Club) "Gentlemen... Welcome to Fight Club".  The music is great, it is simple, it is long some 7minutes, some 5 but some like the heartpiece [1 and 2] are 11 and 20 minutes long respectively.  The reason these songs have led to the title before is that they evoke feelings of change, feelings of renewal but also feelings of despair.  They would work great in movies, they would work great in Television and they would work great to relax too, to let the real world disappear and be taken over by your own tranquil world.  A friend told me once that with music for films you can hear what's going to happen in the action of the film through the music and he played me his piece of music and I could hear the car chase, the man shooting and getting shot and eventually dying. The same can be said with these songs, the speeches help the music to set the scene but they don't tell the story.   This is why I chose the title for this piece, not just to reflect on my grades and my chance to "Man-up" but also because I feel those ideas in the music I've been listening to lately. Will the music tell me a positive story or will it be a story of destruction?  Will it be a story of struggle and sadness or of struggle and happiness? 

On that note and also because I need to sleep.  I am going to end this entry and hope that I have entertained and interested anyone who reads this blog.

Saturday 22 January 2011

Power

It's been a long time since I wrote on here, well over a month ago, fast approaching two months ago.

Writing seems to have dried up for a number of reasons; my four thousand word essay and revision (which is still on going) for my exam on monday, the holidays and the fact that not a lot of interesting stuff happens over the holidays but also because the Power, the will, the desire to write is sucked out of me during this period.

The problem is that when exams come around, they take over you. They control you, doesn't matter how many you have whether it is six or seven like GCSEs or A-Levels or three, two or one like at University but the power from you controlling the level of work you do is shifted from you to the exam.  The stress of exams takes people over in different ways, but I'm sure a lot of people I know will agree, you eat and eat to stave off the angst that you may not be prepared. For me that is just one way of dealing with stress and not the worst. I let the exams' power take over me and pressure me into doing anything but the revision needed, don't get me wrong I still manage to revise but the will-power that would generally occur is diminished. If I'm offered the choice to go play football or go for a drink then I'll go and tell myself "You need to get out, it'll be good for you".  Although this does sound like a good idea, I would much rather be able to spend a whole week locked inside my room doing nothing but going over and over revision notes for the one exam I have this exam period, but I don't have the Power. I can't just read and read, I hate plans for revision because I don't believe you can plan revision, I don't believe you can plan what sticks to your mind because it has never worked that way for me before. For me, revision is torture. I don't know what way suits me best and every different way irritates me each time I try it.  I wish I had a photographic memory but I don't, if anything I have a memory activated by sound, I remember books, games and text's that I've read or played by the music I was listening to at that time, but that won't work in an exam as you're not allowed to listen to music, incase you're listening to your revision notes.  The exam period is a terror time for students, obviously there are some that can walk away from it and feel so confident, get a 2.1 or a 1st even but there are some like myself who are terrified that they won't even get a 2.2 and their whole degree'll be, for lack of a better word, fucked.  The paranoia that is caused by this exam period... it's amazing there isn't a anti-depresenant for it.  I mean Robin Williams had an amazing idea with Fuk-it-ol.  Sometimes I wish I could take Fuk-it-ol and just breeze past all the exam rubbish, the 2 hour exam in a silent room where all you can hear is pens scratching and feet tapping, let alone the occasionally cough or sneeze and then the horror and laughter of someone's mobile phone going off in an exam.  That has actually happened to me before, thankfully not at University but during a mock GCSE Math exam, and I was lucky not to be completely bollocked then. 

I started to write this blog as I was listening to Kanye West's Power the theme song for the Social Network trailer, a film I still haven't managed to see yet but winner of 4 Golden Globes and possibly my favourite for the Oscars.  It's competitor, The King's Speech, is close behind but also I haven't seen and yet the only two films I did see over the Christmas period was Little Fockers, the third and, unfortunaltely, not the last instalment of the Meet the Parents series, and Tron: Legacy, which if I was to choose a film of the last 12 months then Tron: Legacy would be it.  Great soundtrack, great storyline, great acting, great action scenes and I haven't even seen the original.  Jeff Bridges as both C.L.U and the Maker, Kevin Flynn was amazing and Garret Hedlund and Olivia Wilde were both powerful and believable characters.  The use of 3D animation at key parts, not the whole way through, was well done and this along with the inclusion of Daft Punk in both the soundtrack and the film was hilarious and ingenious at the same time.

Thursday 2 December 2010

Det er aldri dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær

Yes, I'm referring to the weather! As I'm partly Norwegian and have lived in the country for a combined total of 4 winters now, it baffles me the weird and almost pathetic panic that Britain goes into whenever more than 2cms of snow is on the ground, granted some areas of Britain really are having a bad winter, and Hull itself is almost close to Oslo's snow level but the weather itself isn't bad here (I can't speak on behalf of the rest of Britain) but you have people complaining about Snow levels and the fact that it's the worst weather ever. PLEASE STOP! it's snow! it's solidified water! It won't kill you and if you're worried about the weather, buy a blanket to sleep in, or buy a proper jacket and proper shoes to keep your feet dry and your body warm. There is no such thing as bad weather just inadequate clothing as they say in Norway.  It is a god to honest truth that the weather in Norway gets pretty shit and that's even in Oslo, the south side of Norway, I've been up to Karasjok in the Finnmark region of Norway (that's near, if not in, the Arctic circle) during Easter and it was minus five degrees centigrade and there was a Blizzard but not one of them, nor I, at 8yrs old, complained of the weather because we were wearing the correct clothing.  It doesn't hurt to prepare for winters like this because they seem to be coming more frequently now, last year caused this much havoc and the year before it was a little less problematic, so the chances are it'll be the same next year too.  Now I've had my rant about the inadequateness of British winter behaviour, I can get on to the good stuff.  I built an igloo that fits 5 people and a chair (to rest stuff on) in, albeit we had to kneel to fit in and it was quite cosy but it was very fun indeed.  It took the whole group of us 7 hours to finish, however I only joined for 5 hours of work as I wasn't aware of the plan until 2 hours into the program. It was a lot of work and very cold as I had no clothes in England for the job and the pair I borrowed from my pal James were wet to begin with but I got on with my job of shovelling snow from the gardens around me and compacting and cementing the "bricks" into place.  We had a great time of it and I suggest anyone who reads this and feels the need to team-build or just to blow of steam, build an igloo, the triumphant feeling afterwards is pretty amazing and its a good, fun and entertaining exercise.  It was my first time building an Igloo, however, I had built snow-holes in Norway before in order to keep warm and rest in, which was a fun activity but very solo effort.  Building the igloo made me feel like a child again but also adult-like too as we had to work hard to make sure the bricks didn't melt or break and fall off and on to us as we were inside the igloo.  It was a great day and I ended up being glad the University, as it is today, was shut-down because of the snow.

Sunday 14 November 2010

"He only threw one punch in nine minutes..."

Audley Harrison, you're a let down!
...
....
.....
......
The first proper fight I have ever watched and it's over in the third round with only one punch thrown by the "Challenger" Audley "A-Force" Harrison.  David "Hayemaker" Haye was everything you expected and the fight really was one-sided from the first bell.  David Haye admitted after the fight that the only reason he hadn't TKO'd Harrison earlier was because he and his family and friends had put a bet on a KO in the third round.  Even though in boxing there is a lot of chat and "banter", you could tell that Haye meant what he'd said, he really could have knocked Harrison out in the first round if he really wanted to. There was absolutely no fight in Harrison and whether he knew that when he got in the ring or whether he'd honestly been planning on dragging a boring sparring session out with Haye and then slugging him in the 7th or 8th round as I'd cheekily put a bet on to play devil's advocate.  The fight was so dull for the majority of it and the excitement was short-lived with the ref stepping in a bit prematurely to end Harrison's humiliation.  The best fight of that night was George Groves vs Kenny Anderson, the latter, a ginger Scottish, hard-man, looked the more likely to end Groves' unbeaten run at 22 but Groves, a ginger pasty, Englishman, turned it on its head in the 6th round and knocked Anderson out.  That game despite being the Under-card to Haye vs Harrison was twice as exciting as the actual bout itself.  Another fight that had the opportunity to thrill was Manny Pacquiao (sorry for the spelling)  vs Marguito (again sorry for the spellings) but unfortunately we hadn't recorded it, but "Pacman" won that fight on points after telling the ref to finish the fight because he didn't want to cause permanent damage "that's not what boxing is about"! what a gentleman! ... well I guess he is a Congressman!

Well my first full foray into boxing was interesting, exciting and fully entertaining, but unfortunately the fight itself, wasn't what it should have been. Look forward to watching Haye vs the Klitschko brothers.

Friday 12 November 2010

Let's get ready to rumble!

It's fight night!!!... well tomorrow anyway, it's the fight of the year, the Best of Enemies as Sky Sports is calling it.  No.. no Mourinho and Rafa are not fighting.  It's David Haye, the Hayemaker, vs Audley Harrison, his former friend now "Enemy".  Why these two became enemies makes no sense, not even after reading Lenox Lewis' comments on the alleged sparring incident that broke their friendship up.

Anyway, the fight is tomorrow, and as a lot of you who know me well know, I'm not the biggest boxing fan, it can be tedious but there is something about this fight that has got me gripped and so I am going to a mate's to watch it with K.F.C and Beer... good combo I'd say. As a relative novice to the boxing arena and the only boxer I have ever paid much attention to fight-wise has been Haye, I'd kind of like him to win but Audley Harrison looks a lot stronger and I think he may have gotten one over Haye in the "bullying" stage of the build-up to the actual fight. 

Away from the fight, something I will come back to, to give my opinions of the live match after it has happened, I wish to discuss, well nothing in particular.  It's been a bit of a busy half-month since I last posted on here, with the company, still unofficially named, and with work and catching up with old friends.  Take for instance last night! Possibly one of the funnest nights I have had all semester and it was the least active with not a lot occurring, yet still hilarious and enjoyable.  I had been planning on having an early night and doing some light University work, preparation for tutorials and lectures etc but ended up going out with my Housemate Sarah to meet a friend of ours, an ex-Loughborough student working in Hull, who was gonna move in with us but due to complications had to go elsewhere.  Anyway we met him and his new housemates at Weatherspoons down the road from us and had a drink there before going to check his new place out and listen to his very good music collection and drink his Polish beer (not bad! but prefer their vodka).  We came back home and had a chat before I left to my room to do some work to find a message from an old friend of mine from Belgium. 

Now this is where the night became one of those epic, yet bizarre nights.  My friend from Belgium goes to University in Boston, America.  We had an international Skype drink up together, her with some Jameson and me with some shit Rum which tasted more like whiskey.  My friend is the coolest and best-friend ever! no matter what time we call each other on Skype we're always online for ages and constantly chatting gibberish to each other, barely making sense to each other but somehow knowing exactly what the other said.  we spent hours catching-up on each others lives, we gossiped and we laughed at somethings we (mainly myself) had done in the past (Aerosmith).  We then had a three-way Skype date with another friend from Belgium who was also in America for this year. I hadn't spoken to her either for a long time and it was great to catch-up with the pair of them and just be silly for once.  We chatted away until 05.30ish a.m. GMT which kind of ruined today's plans of being productive, but for the opportunity of having that conversation with both of them it was more than worth it. 

Apart from that great Skype call, not a lot has happened since I last wrote on here.  The company social was a blast and we all got very, unprofessionally drunk which of course was great! and the pictures that followed were just as great.   Rugby has been going the same, training only to find out the matches have been cancelled which is very frustrating as I really, really want to get on to the pitch and play!  However, all in all October was a good month and November has been going well too.

Thursday 28 October 2010

MuHu.com?

Well, "Project X", formally Raw Britannia, may have finally found its new brand name for the website that is purely for Unsigned Artists (as opposed to the other brand name for all the other media activities we're taking on now) and that name may well be MuHu.com *it may be muhu.com, I'm not quite sure on that one yet* and the person who has come up with such an amazing, potential, brand name? ...

Still not guessed who? It was me! Yes I was lucky enough to have created a potential name for the brand. The "word" MuHu came to me at the time because we'd been discussing ways of getting a name for the brand and that a lot of good brands had used "made-up words" instead of existing words e.g. NIVEA.  Some of these "made-up words" were the mixing of two words/names/places e.t.c to make a brand name up. 
            
             So I was thinking that we're going to be showing Unsigned Music in Hull and was trying to get all of those words into one word. However UnMusull didn't sound too great in my head, and after the disaster of Banana Vinyl with some of the other Production team, I decided to drop the idea of unsigned as un doesn't make for an inspiring prefix.  So I was left with Muhull, Musull, Mussll, Husic (not too bad) and finally I came to the idea of MuHu.  It seemed that it was not a completely idiotic idea for a brand name and has been seriously considered at least by the Producer and hopefully others.  The only downside is that it might already be a website's name but maybe we'll be able to buy the domain name off them.  MuHu will also stand for something else other than Music in Hull as we don't want to be stuck to one geographically position as we do want to eventually expand so I think it may now stand for Music Hub (much more sensible as Music in Hull technically should be MuiHu.. not as great).

Hopefully this will be the new name for the brand but if not I'm sure it will be something just as catchy and simple (rather than over-elaborate and confusing) that people can understand and enjoy.  However, this doesn't mean everything is hunky-dory, alas we still need to technically recruit rolling students for the positions like runner and 3rd choice camera-man e.t.c and all of the Production team are being interviewed on either Friday (like me) or Tuesday in order to explain what "Job" they'd like to perform for the Company and also their choice of name for the brand if they have an idea (I will suggest both MuHu.com and also Banana-Vinyl.com because I love them both equally).  I would like to keep going on my position as Set List Co-Ordinator (I entitled the role myself, sounds good, no?) but I'd also like to ask if I can try out the role of Presenter, the role I originally wished to take when we were interviewed by Alan and Darren for Raw Britannia, I just hope our current Presenter doesn't reject the idea. 

Either way I am looking forward to the meeting with our Producer and Marketing Officer (I think that's her title, not sure) and getting a brief time to tell them what I think my Set List Co-Ordinator gig should entail.