Free Cinema Tickets

After several months of leaving my YouTube account unattended, it was this video that made me think fuck it! i'm gonna make a new video!! I decided against writing a plan/script for the video and just sat in front of the camera in my PJs and just decided to talk about anything at all. This is the result. Anyways, I've got a really important video to make soon so hopefully I'll get that up and blogged about ASAP.

The Raven

Earlier today I randomly started quoting The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. I've had this version on my iPod for almost a year now and I absolutely love it. I actually haven't read much of Poe, although what I have read truly grips me.

Currently reading Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin after giving up on The Hunger Games after the second book. I will definitely read the last one (Mockingjay) at some point, I just got a little sick of Catching Fire and it took me a good two months to finish the damn thing.

In other news, my sister has moved back to the UK! After a good seven-odd years of living in far off distant lands (and this is my younger sister we're talking about!), she has decided to grace our shores once more! It's also the first of September today... which means I'm taking part in RE:LENTLESS. I'm basically torturing myself by not drinking any carbonated soft drinks for a month. Today was day one. I'm shattered. I need sleep.

Pretty Much Sick

So I'm pretty much sick. Woke up this morning with a few sniffles, nothing to write home about. Then by the time I got to work, I had started to get that horrific tickley feeling behind my eyes as I seemed to be in a perpetual state of needing to sneeze without any such bloody thing actually happening. The day dragged and all I wanted to do was go home to bed. Which I did. So my room is still a mess and I have managed to do nothing at all productive which sucks. What sucks even more is the thought that if this gets any worse, I'll have to take a day off work which I really can't afford after two holidays in one summer.

Anyways, being sick is a good enough reason as any to write a blog post. The picture is of Charlie McDonnell, aka charlieissocoollike and I just really liked it. Hope to have some videos up shortly as I now have a massive backlog of footage.

One more thing, I'm gonna pay by cheque!

Saving Eeyore

Things have been pretty hectic for me recently, a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and being a general pest to myself and others in my vicinity. However, I have finally finished moving all my crap into my new place and accidentally/on purpose managed to acquire an Eeyore stocking along the way. Be warned; this anecdote illustrates how mentally unstable I really am!

You see, I think it had something to do with the lack of caffeine. I drink a lot of coffee/energy drinks at work and on Monday, I was challenged by those at the desks around me to go one full day just drinking water. I knew it was going to be tough and I knew I was going to be cranky. By the end of the day, my mood was all over the place and I just wanted to go home to bed. The last thing I really wanted to be doing was moving the last drips and drabs of my stuff. Especially as it was "pishin it doon". I mean, it wasn't just a drizzle, it was borderline torrential.

It was as we pulled up one of the neighbouring streets to park that I saw it. Something on the road. Something that looked a little bit like a red towel. Then a pillow. Then it became clear! It was Eeyore! In the road! Abandoned and getting soaked! I can't really explain why I felt such a strong urge to "save" it because even now, I know it sounds gross. But that's what I did. I picked it up (it turned out to be an Eeyore Christmas stocking), took it home and bunged it straight into the washing machine. The photo came about due to my telling this tale at work. And then my deciding to share it with you.

I told you, this blog is ODD.

The Edinburgh NerdFighter Gathering

I'm procrastinating, as per usual. It's 11.40pm, I have a taxi picking me up at 5.30am and not only am I convinced that this is the opportune time to write a blog about the Edinburgh NerdFighter Gathering that happened on Sunday, but I also fully intend on catching up with all the episodes of EastEnders that I have missed over the last couple of days. I know, I'm crazy. I should really be focusing on making sure I have everything ready for tomorrow (I'm heading to Vienna!!) but it seems that no matter how many times I go over my check-list, I still think I've forgotten something.

But enough of that! Sunday saw a reunion of the Scottish NerdFighters here in Edinburgh. Back in February, I stumbled across a thread on the forum called "YourPants" (I know, right? A thread on YourPants) which saw Scottish NerdFighters organising a meet up just for funzies. This was amazing because I had genuinely never met a fellow NerdFighter and so I was pretty quickly enrolled as the unofficial photographer of the event (a NerdFighter being a subgroup of the YouTube community created by the AWESOME VlogBrothers). It was held in Glasgow back in April so naturally, the summer gathering was held right here in Edinburgh!

For those of you wondering, it's basically a giant picnic so thankfully, the weather behaved itself and as you can see, it was actually a beautifully sunny day! I even got a tad sunburnt!

Guitars always make an appearance and with Songsfrompaul strumming away, our soundtrack for the day couldn't have been better!

Alistair, aka 8bitglasses takes a break

And last but not least, ME!

(You don't usually see me because I'm the one

pushing the button on the camera!)

A Thank You

Firstly, wow.

This is a big thank you to my friend Morven over at Cats and Rocking Chairs (as in, my first and currently only follower) who has very kindly given me a shout out in her blog. She told me this today while we were at lunch and I felt a little sorry for her poor followers who are used to her stylish fashion blog and who may have understandably assumed that this was also a stylish fashion blog...

Alas, it is not. I actually don't have a clue what this blog is other than a hotpot of crackpot posts! No, but seriously, it's called ODSOX87 and I welcome you to this merry-go-round of musings. I doubt many of you will stick around but here's a little treat for coming this far.

This video was taken today and is the first to be uploaded from my new Flip!

Enjoy :)

TEAM CRANK

Not much to report other than I WON MY FIRST PUB QUIZ!! Not much of a pub quiz goer, but have been on my fair share of losing teams (although not too shit that we actually win any form of booby prize). Tried to rally up some of the Barcelona crew for the new quiz that's just started at Aspen here in Edinburgh. Only two people turned up, not including myself. However, we somehow managed to stumble upon an ex pub quiz host who wanted to join our team. My highlight was the music round where we got 19.5/20! That, and the fact that I knew Anne Hathaway was Shakespeare's wife! I must thank Bill Bryson for that one, and my Mum for buying me the book!

Going next week as TEAM BOILED GOOSE.

Cassette Tape

This is going to be a relatively odd post because I'm still awake at 1.30am, have to be up for work in a few hours time and I just can't seem to bring myself out of my post-holiday blues, even though I've been back for almost a week now. I went to Barcelona for Sonar music festival and it was genuinely one of the best trips of my life.

Anyway, I'll hopefully get around to writing more about the trip later (when I'm not so depressed) but I thought I'd share with you my cassette image. I love cassette tapes. I used to make mixed tapes for car journeys when I was younger. I still listen to audio books on cassettes and have quite a collection stored away in my parents' house. I also practically wet myself when Threadless issued their Nostalgia t-shirt because I've done that loads!

Yeah, I told you this post would be weird...

In other news, I finished the first book in The Hunger Games trilogy and have moved onto Catching Fire. I'll give you my thoughts later but at the moment, I have to say I don't really see why people are creaming themselves over it... it's alright, I just don't think it's fantastic and the thought of there being yet another book to read after finishing Catching Fire is tiring me out.

Right, I'm off to listen to my Harry Potter audio tapes :D

Jekyll & Hyde

Jekyll & Hyde are two names that I genuinely just presumed everyone knew, along with others like Frankenstein and Dracula. Ok, fair enough you might struggle to remember who actually wrote the original story, but the tale is so ingrained in modern society, I find it hard to comprehend how someone could have lived life without gaining at least a basic knowledge of the plot (come on, CBBC even ran a series called Julia Jekyll and Harriet Hyde while I was still in primary school).

So when asked by a friend of a friend what my plans were for last Friday evening, I was slightly taken aback by his response of "What's that about?" when I told him I was heading (once again) to The Edinburgh Playhouse to see Robert Louis Stevenson's classic brought to life on stage.

In saying that, having read the book myself, I feel a reread is in order; I for one certainly don't remember the story having much to do with love at all. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, there is no romance in the original, yet the play features heavily on two lead female characters who are both in love with Dr Jekyll. This addition got to be quite boring as a lot of the songs seemed to revolve around their relationships and I'm just not a big fan of "woe is me" solo sing-your-heart-out style songs.

Which brings me to my next point: It's a musical.

Now, I like musicals, I do, I really do. It's just... I personally don't think Jekyll & Hyde managed to pull it off that successfully. I reckon if you're going to take a famous Victorian Gothic tale of human duality, you need an exciting, creepy score. I would have much preferred it if the songs were just scrapped completely and the writers focused more on the story because it's a very good story that didn't need to be tampered with in the first place.

HOWEVER, despite some of the songs being a bit wishy-washy for my personal liking, I did enjoy the performance overall and would definitely recommend anyone to go see it. I think Marti Pellow did a great job as both Jekyll and Hyde (I especially liked how his hair style was used as an indicator of which of the two characters he was portraying) and the set was fantastic. If, on the other hand, you'd rather spend your money on something a little more substantial, then I strongly suggest you purchase the book. Especially if you're one of those select few who have never heard of the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde...

The Pierces

Got a message last week from my friend Cara telling me that The Pierces were going to be in Edinburgh on the 7th June and if I fancied joining her to see them perform. Previous to this message, the only song I'd ever heard of theirs was Secret which was also introduced to me by Cara. I'd liked Secret so did that thing again where I accepted without bothering to check and see if I'd like any of their other tunes. I'm very trusting like that.

Edinburgh was the first stop on their UK tour promoting their new album You&I . They were preforming at The Pleasance Theater which seemed odd to me to begin with as this room is very dark and full of seats whereas I had (for some reason) imagined there to be room for people to stand and chat. I'm very inexperienced when it comes to these things but it worked out in the end, despite the fact that whoever was in charge of lighting had a tendency to just plunge the room into darkness or fill it with light without warning. The seats themselves were a little uncomfortable but I reckon that happens regardless when you're having to sit stationary for two and a half hours.

We turned up slightly late so Delta Maid, one of the opening acts was already mid-performance, a Liverpudlian solo singer with guitar. And while there's no question that she's incredibly talented (and sweet!), her music wasn't really to my taste. I get the impression that if I was to listen to her songs a few times over, they would grow on me, it was simply I didn't fall in love on the spot. The second act, Alice Gold (right), was a different story. She walked onto the stage with her long blond hair (for a moment confusing me because I thought she was Catherine Pierce) and fellow band mates and just blew me away with her voice and stage presence. Her music is very reminiscent of the 60s, incredibly catchy and toe-tapping. I have every intention of downloading her albums. Probably my favourite song of hers at the moment is Runaway Love, have listened to it a fair few times since Tuesday night. And on a different note, her eyes are gorgeous!

Finally, The Pierces took to the stage to much applause and began wowing everyone with their new songs. Like I said before, I'd only heard Secret before which, if I'm honest, is very different from the songs the played. I really liked Secret, but it was nothing to some of the other songs on offer. In fact, I'd go as far to say that as they were playing their last few songs, Secret is arguably one of their least impressive tunes which should say something about the other songs - they were amazing. I had felt that it would have been difficult to top Alice Gold (because her songs were better than Secret as well) but I was not disappointed in the slightest. Without a shadow of a doubt, Glorious is my song for summer.

EVITA

Sometimes, just to shake things up a bit, I'll go see a film or read a book with absolutely no idea what it's about. In other words, I will deliberately refrain from researching its plot or searching for reviews so I can watch/read while free of any preconceptions that such research could potentially throw my way. So when my friend, Katy, suggested we go to the theater, I suggested we go see Evita at The Edinburgh Playhouse.

Now, don't get me wrong, I knew Evita was famous and I knew that "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" is from it... but that was pretty much as far as my knowledge extended. Turned out that Katy was pretty much in the same boat as me and just fancied going to see a performance. However, while we walked to The Playhouse discussing our severe lack of knowledge of the show we had just spent £50 on, Katy piped up that she knew it was about the political system in Argentina way-back-when. This was probably my first alarm bell as it contrasted quite significantly from the idea I had painted in my head of it being somehow kinda similar to Mamma Mia. I don't really "get" politics and historical politics are just a no-go usually.

Aesthetically, the show was phenomenal. I mean, there's just no way anyone could really fault the singers and dancers and the set construction was equally impressive (not to mention the dress worn for "Don't Cry For Me")... it just didn't really float my boat, which was massively disappointing. Other than the fact that politics has never been a strong point for me, I've never been a fan of musicals completely void of dialogue as I tend to find it quite tiring to keep up with the story. On top of everything else, having eventually figured out that the production is based on a real person, I came to the dismal conclusion that this is one instance where doing a bit of digging beforehand would have been incredibly beneficial.

Basically, I'm definitely glad I went to see it, it's just a shame that it wasn't as good as Mamma Mia!

In other news, a very big hello and welcome to my lunch buddy Morven who has become my first official follower! I think she did it out of pity (haha!).

The Hunger Games begin...

After finally finishing Four Past Midnight by Stephen King, I was just about to sink my teeth into a reread of the last three Harry Potter books (I mean, the movie is almost upon us!) when a conversation at work with my lunch buddy, Morven, turned to a trilogy I had heard a lot about. I'm clearly talking about Susanne Collins's The Hunger Games which received a lot of exceptionally positive reviews here on the interwebs. I was telling Morven about how excited the girl in Waterstone's got when I rocked up at the counter with the whole set and how she almost had a fit when I told her that they were making the movie.

Anyways, being a bookworm herself, Morven was convinced enough to go ahead and buy them and suggested we read them together to share views and so, last night, I put Harry Potter aside (I mean, I've read them so many times I can practically recite them!) and picked up volume one of The Hunger Games. I'm only on chapter 3 at the moment but have a feeling that I'm probably going to get through them rather quickly. I already love the atmosphere and air of desperation that's been set.

I'll keep you posted on my thoughts :)

Kinder Surprise!

Not that long ago, I was watching 4OD and during one of the truly irritating ad breaks (I long for the days when advertising hadn't infiltrated the internet) they showed the new Kinder Surprise advert. It was quite strange because firstly, I never remember Kinder Surprise ever having its own advert and secondly, I haven't seen a Kinder Surprise in a really long time!

Now, like a lot of people, I tend to consider myself to be someone who isn't easily susceptible when it comes to advertising. Rarely do I see an advert for a new product and think, Yeah, I'm definitely getting that! But this advert did the trick. I simply thought, Wow! Haven't had a Kinder Egg in years! I'd love to have one again.

Then I thought it would be a neat idea to make a video about revisiting childhood. I mean, my mum always brings me back a box of Lucky Charms from America because that was my favourite cereal as a kid. Then I wondered if anyone else has ever done a look at me opening a Kinder Egg video on Youtube and low and behold! There are actually LOADS!

It was definitely a lot of fun. I bought two just in case one was a bit shit but they were both so cute. I'm one of those people who like the toys to be of an animal or creature of some sort, not boats or cars or whatnot. So I was pretty pleased with my toys! A strange purple alien thing with three eyes which was sooo cute when I opened the egg (which are now all high-tech and have a hinge!) and then this gorgeous blue rabbit thing with incredibly long ears.

Slight problem though... I now want more Kinder Eggs... I was starting to think that maybe I could make it a part of my videos, say, at the end of each video I show my new Kinder Surprise toy and start a little collection. Then, when I get doubles or duplicates, I can give them away to any viewer who fancies one. These are just ideas at the moment. I have a feeling I would have to buy many Kinder Eggs before I started to get doubles. That was one of the annoying things I remember from being a kid; wanting all the toys!

I LOVE LUSH! (among other things...)

This is quite a big deal to me but I GOT MY FIRST VIDEO RESPONSE!!

I mean, I've been making videos (kinda on and off) since May of last year and as I'm not one of those people who will "do anything for subscribers", I don't have many. Today, my subscriber count stands at 19 and I'm very happy with all 19 of them! But the majority of my comments (and I guess my subscribers as well...) are family members who are obviously biased when it comes to commenting.

BUT a couple of days ago I got my first video response! Like I said, this is a big deal to me because when I uploaded my How do you say "FEBRUARY"? video, my only wish was for someone to make a video response, just one person. I even put a desperate plea at the end of the video asking my sister to please be that person because I was positive the chances of me even achieving some views were slim.

Then I found BecccaLynnn's channel randomly because she posted a video about receiving Nerimon's playing cards in the post and, as I'm still waiting for my pack to arrive, I was keen to see what other people thought of them.

In other news, I bought my first product from LUSH yesterday. I basically got on the wrong bus and ended up half way down Prince's Street instead of North Bridge and for some reason, I saw LUSH and just decided I wanted to buy something before I even walked in. I mean, I've been to LUSH before and have always marveled at how amazing that place smells (seriously, you should go smell it) but I've always shied away from purchasing stuff from there because it's quite expensive. But the face wash that I'm using now is nearly done and I figured I'd splash out a little and get the OCEAN SALT face scrub. I now can't wait for my stupid Nivia face wash to hurry up and finish so I can start using my very own ocean in a pot!

Rasi Never Drinks

If you remember my post about the apple crumble, I told you that I basically stumbled across that footage when I decided to start making videos again (I gave up for about five months because I really wasn't feeling it...). Anyways, in the same file as the short clip of the apple crumble, there was about 15 minutes worth of footage that I'd taken of one of my sister's friends (who rarely drinks) incredibly drunk.

For those interested, this all happened the same day as this.

A Late Valentine's Day Post

There's not really that much I can say about this little video other than, despite it looking incredibly amateur, I'm so proud of myself and have watched it a fair few times! All of it was done on Microsoft Paint (in case that wasn't obvious enough...) and it took me hours. I didn't put much effort into it as I only thought about making it on Valentine's day and wanted to have it posted on YouTube before the day was out but I would definitely like to try my hand at more animation in the not so distant future. Maybe if I start working on it now, next year's video for Valentine's day will be immense!

A Message For Meekakitty

I've been subscribed to Meekakitty on Youtube for over a year now because she's quite adorable to watch. There's always something cute about her videos which, more often than not, turn out to just be her chattering away about something or other. Things I know about Meekakitty are all information she has willingly given away through her videos so one thing I know for certain is she lives in the U.S.

Therefore, it was quite a surprise when I spotted a picture of her on a banner ad for a website called Fling.com at the bottom of beachcreeps. This advert was basically informing me of all the girls "looking for fun" in Edinburgh (what are the chances!) and there was Tessa... Obviously, I know she never set up an account on this website claiming to be looking for fun in Edinburgh, I'm not stupid. But I still find it amusing that someone has actually used an internet "celebrity" to try and find a "fling".

I decided to make a short video to let Tessa know that her picture is being used in this way (on the off-chance that she isn't already aware of this) and figured, as it's the day before Valentine's day, I'd offer her a cupcake sprinkled with hearts. I had to use my webcam for fear of running out of time on getting this up before tomorrow hence why the quality is atrocious. But there you go.

I've got no idea if she'll even watch my video.

Mmm! Apple Crumble!

One of my goals for this year is to be a little more proactive when it comes to making my YouTube videos. It happens a lot when something will come up during my day-to-day life and I'll think, I should make a video about that! But seeing as hardly anyone besides my close family actually knows about my odd little hobby, I find it really difficult to find enough time when I can set up my video camera and chat away without worrying about what my flatmates might think I'm doing.

Anyways, tonight I was preparing for a video that I'm going to be working on tomorrow and somewhere in the process of getting stuff organised, I stumbled across the crumble! The clip above is incredibly short and I can't find any of the other ones (I remember there being quite a few takes, although I can't remember why I felt the need to film an apple crumble...). But I like it. It just reminds me of my trip to Helsinki when I got to spend a lot of time with my sister who is a dab hand at all sorts of domestic magic. She'll just decide to make something scrumptious and ta-da! Deliciousness is served.

Another one of my goals for this year is to try harder at learning to cook. I'm slightly ashamed to say this but cooking scares me... which is strange because I love baking. I think the main difference is, with baking, you're following a very precise list of instructions whereas cooking is more relaxed and (at least in my eyes) easier to fuck up. The extent of my cooking stretches as far as cheese toasties or homemade pasta sauce. And SuperNoodles... And cereal... but the flat that I've moved into is quite cooking orientated and we take turns every now and again to cook for each other. I've made my pasta which thankfully was a hit (if not, it sure was spicy!) but I don't want to serve pasta repeatedly. So I took a deep breath yesterday and tried my hand at cooking chicken for a visiting friend. I know there are plenty of people out there who will scoff at me patting myself on the back so jubilantly for cooking diced chicken breast but it was quite a big deal for me considering I usually stay away from cooking any meat or poultry (or any other animal for that matter) because I'm so scared I'll poison everybody. But none of that happened and I got more compliments which felt good. Hmm, what shall I learn next?

On a slightly different note, no one has replied to my How do you say "FEBRUARY"? request which while not surprising (I mean, 17 subscribers and virtually no hits on my videos suggests no one gives a shit) is also quite disheartening because there's only two more weeks of February left, and I kind of wanted at least one response before March.

An Old Nosebleed

I woke up too early this morning after yet another late night. However, I'm still in that sleeplike zone where I know nothing important is going to be achieved today so I may as well not bother.

Having checked all my emails and so on, I quickly ran out of things to do and was on my way to looking up images of foxes (don't ask) when my mind took a tangent and typed in "odsox87" into google images...

I don't know why I was surprised that images of me actually turned up, but as I was scrolling through them (there aren't that many), I noticed a surprisingly large amount of photos of nosebleeds that had nothing to do with me. I mean, literally, just random pictures of people with nosebleeds just kind of peppered through images that I recognised as mine. The one thing that they all had in common was the websource. I came to the conclusion that somewhere on this site, "odsox87" must appear.

What I found was a page dedicated to nosebleeds. It's very title, fuck yeah nosebleeds gives it away slightly. Scrolling through these pictures, it suddenly dawns on me that I do have a picture of a nosebleed hidden somewhere on the internet - it must have been found by these nosebleed enthusiasts and added to their vast collection.

And sure enough, there I was, 19 years old again, blood dripping down my face while I stand in my bathroom taking a self portrait.

I remember it had been quite a boring day which had moved on to become a boring evening. I was in first year of University, my first year living away from home (hell, I was on a different continent from my parents!). All I really remember about the nosebleed itself was being somewhat taken aback as I hadn't had one in a very long time, and for it to just happen out of the blue while I'm sitting on my bed minding my own business was just bizarre. As soon as I realised what was happening, I decided I wanted to take a picture of it. Sounds strange, I know but in my mind, there was a strong sense of metaphor attached to that nosebleed. I can't really explain it, it made sense at the time!

Ok, so I'm assuming I'm part of a minority when it comes to taking self portraits of nosebleeds, but on the off-chance that you ever try it, blood clots rather quickly. Within minutes, the nosebleed had actually stopped but the blood on my face had hardened meaning I was restricted to one expression for my photos. And I took a lot of photos. They were predominantly shit which was a massive disappointment as the photos I'd imagined were all beautiful. After I'd washed up and loaded my waste-of-time photos to my laptop, there was only one picture that made any sort of impression on me but the colouring was harsh and saturated. A few tweeks here and there on picassa and I was a little happier with what I'd produced. It still wasn't great but it had a slight eeriness about it which was what I'd been going for originally.

And that was it really. Put it up online and received very mixed reviews. Some people loved it while others thought it was revolting. I still like it, and I'm happy that there are nosebleed enthusiasts out there who accepted my one as worthy enough for their blog. It's strange how these things work out sometimes.

Damnyouautocorrect hurts!

There's this website called Damnyouautocorrect.com which has been giving me stitches for the past couple of weeks now. I first discovered this gem of a site just after Christmas when my Mum and sister (who both have iPhones) introduced me to it. We honestly sat there for a good two hours in silent laughter and tears streaming down our faces!

It's one of those black holes of the internet though, so if you're deciding to go there for the first time; BE WARNED! You may find yourself stranded for several hours because you just need to keep going. The one on the left here is my recent favourite. Too hilarious!

How do you say "FEBRUARY"?

As it turned out, I ended up having the flat all to myself for a few hours on Friday of last week (the day after I posted all that crap about not having time to record videos as no one in my flat knows about my weird obsession with YouTube...).

Basically, as a former Linguistics student, stuff to do with language interests me and I get a strange kick out of friends using me as a source of authoritative knowledge simply because I have a degree. But obviously, there's loads of stuff that I simply don't know or don't understand and in some cases, I get 100% wrong (oops).

"February" is just one of those words that I can live without. Having a slight Scottish accent means I tend to roll my Rs which, in the case of February, results in my sounding ridiculous. I hear some people drop the first R completely and wind up saying Feb-YOU-a-ry, which in case you're wondering, is due to something called "dissimilation". This basically means that for most of us, saying Fe-bru-a-ry is a pain in the ass and we like to make life easier for ourselves by abandoning that stupid first R. Additionally, February is often listed after January (I'd be concerned if you didn't know this...) and January only has the one R and so, a lot of us end up just sort of splicing the end of January onto February while we're speaking and hope no one notices.

But I'm different. I don't say Fe-bru-a-ry or Feb-YOU-a-ry... I go and make things more complicated by dropping not just that first R but the following U and A so I'm left with the mutant and compressed form Feb--ry. I sometimes do the same with poor old January and squash it into the hideous monster that is Jan--ry. It doesn't end there though! Library? I think you'll find it's pronounced Lib--ry.

The only problem with doing this is that I'm always very aware of how I'm saying it... And when you have an acute awareness of something that should really be an unconscious action, you start to question whether other people do the same, are you the only one, is this even the right way to pronounce this bloody word??

So the very much long overdue video is not only explaining my frustration with the English pronunciation system but also asking for anyone out there who feels like being nice and to let me know How do you say "FEBRUARY"?

To let me know, simply click on the video above which will direct you to my YouTube page and upload your video response to the video with the same name. It's not really important or anything but I think it'll be fun to hear how other people say it and if there's anyone out there who says it the same way as I do. Plus, if there are any other common words out there that you hate saying, let me know!

I'm hoping this will help me through the remaining 3 weeks of February...

Late Night Headache

I'm still up. It's stupid but for some reason all my productivity has just gone out the window. Yesterday was no better. I'd gone out on Tuesday night, and while the club shut at 1am and I honestly hadn't drank that much, I still woke up at something like 9am and I was just so incredibly tired for the rest of the day that I didn't get anything done. Actually, that's a lie; I did somehow manage to finally send my blasted tax letter after months of damn procrastination which, if I'm honest, I'm pretty ashamed at because I'm due a lot of money. But other than sending the letter (and calling my mother to tell her that I'd finally got off my fat ass to do so), I did nothing. I had planned to make a new video for YouTube but as I'm actually pretty self-conscience of the fact that I don't have any followers and my flatmates don't even know (I hope!) that I do it, I'm kind of waiting for the day I've got the flat to myself. Hasn't happened yet. Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and set up my tripod. I mean, I actually enjoy making videos, even if they're just silly little rambles of my life. I like to plan it out, I like thinking of what to say and I like the whole editing process as well.

But anyways, getting back to the topic in hand: I need to get a grip of my situation. Just after I moved into my new room, I needed to be quite productive to get things all organised and make the place feel a little more like home. Simple things like shopping for bedcovers or even just food made me feel happy. And being productive feels good! You have no idea how weird it felt after I dropped that stupid tax letter into the post-box! It was quite liberating! Now I just need to hope I included all the right information and they can simply give me my money back dammit!

That was yesterday though. And yesterday I said to myself, Ok, how about we make that video tomorrow? And once again I had that ridiculous belief that yes, tomorrow I'll be even more productive and get loads of shit done! Instead, I get up at 1.45pm, go online, be anything but productive and then think, Right, I'll have some food and then I can be productive...

It's frustrating because here I am, ranting about something I can quite easily change but yet it's 2.30am and I just know I'll be tired tomorrow and not want to do anything. Additionally, I don't know about where you are, but the weather here has gone pretty mental the last few days. Apparently it snowed this morning but it's the wind! It literally whistles past my window and there's been thunder as well. In other words, the perfect weather for just curling up under a nice thick duvet with Deal or No Deal on the telly.

Yeah, it's frustrating because it's so pathetic...

Hmm...

At the end of my last post I wrote something along the lines of "things could definitely be worse!"... Well, in case you're wondering, the severe lack of blog entries after that post (and no, I'm not including the video of that cool Google thing), is because things most certainly and most definitely went shit-side up for me. And there I was, in a country where I had no friends except my sister who was juggling jobs. Not to mention her boyfriend who seemed to really hate me. And then my boyfriend back in Scotland decided to have some serious long-distance-relationship issues which resulted in some super-duper confused and stressful followed quickly by desperation and depression. It was pretty bad, my mental health did a belly flop and it's just unfortunate that writing about my "cruel world" for a stupid online blog was not exactly at the top of my list of priorities. To be honest, I didn't have a list of priorities except sleep for as long as possible to get away from it all. Even eating was abandoned and I dropped several dress sizes.

But anyways, I guess what I'm trying to say is: "I'm not in Helsinki any more". I've heard loads of stories of people just packing up and moving somewhere like China or Indonesia and genuinely thought that I'd be "safer" in Helsinki. I thought, well, I won't have to deal with language barriers or culture shocks or anything like that, I'll be in a place with my amazing sister and the two of us will have such a fantastic time...

Hmm...

Once it became apparent that the isolation and my solitary confinement to my room was NOT helping the situation, I made the difficult decision to pack my life up again and come home. It hasn't been easy but it was definitely the right thing to do.

Now here I am, confessing to having failed at so much more than just regularly updating this blog. But it's February, and it's a new year. Things have settled slightly since I moved back to Scotland in November. I hope that I'll be able to keep writing but I can't promise anything (and I have no one to promise to either, I mean, no one actually reads my posts so I guess this is mainly for me).

Right, well, that's it for now. The door's always open :)