Aaanddd.... Relax

I haven't posted in ages, and for that I do apologise, Audience. But, however, I have been very busy. 

I am indeed back at uni now, which of course means I have little to no free time left ever, but fortunately today I managed to get some time off. 

I arrived back on Sunday night and then went to go and see Lannah because she was so desperate to see me. It felt a little odd though, just because nothing was happening. Back home something is always happening, like an upcoming birthday party or Granite Moths or whatever else, and usually something is always happening at uni too, whether we're going out or doing stuff with Demon TV, whatever. But I think this was the one day in like... well, ages, where literally nothing was happening. Maybe it would have been different if all of my uni friends had gotten together so we could all chat about our holidays and what not and blah blah, but yeah. We had a good chat nonetheless.

I think I can maybe put it down to this new thing of having two completely separate groups of friends, so that Sunday night was the transitional period between being happy to be back at uni and being sad because I'll not see my friends for a long time. Guess that's just something I'll have to get used to doing. I don't think I often appreciate exactly how much you guys mean to me. And that's for either group of friends, so don't feel left out. 

Quit whining, Audience, I've never even met you. I just talk at you and you read/listen. I'm sure you're all lovely people (although statistically that can't be true), but the fact remains that I can't cater to everyone's needs, so shut up. 

I'm joking, Audience, I love you really. 

Anyway, Monday was an interesting day. It started off with Demon TV getting together at stupid o'clock in the morning (roughly translates as 0930) and chatting about what we would be doing that term. I think. Wait, what did we actually talk about? I'm not even entirely sure that anything was decided... In fact, it may have been our least informative management meeting to date. In any case, Stan soon left and then soon later Ben left and James and I had an argument about something probably, and then he left and then Lannah said we should go to the Western to try and get this room booked. So we did. As soon as we exited, though, a wild Hannah appeared and she joined us on our walk, and we all agreed that lunch (despite it still being breakfast time) was a good idea. The Western happened to be closed, and probably because it was still morning, and pubs are cleverer than us morning people apparently. 

I hate mornings. 

So we strolled back to the SU and had breakfast in the Graduate bar. Lannah tried her first ever hash brown, but she kept going on about how awesome Irish food is. No. Something the English got right is breakfast. I doubt that the Irish version of the Full English could possibly be any better. From what I can tell, it doesn't even have hash browns. Heresy. 

Anyway, after seeing that the lovely people at the bank had given me £1900 and then subsequently taken away £1400 for rent, I had £500 to play with, so I bought some food. In true keeping with my resolution, I didn't buy anything that could be thrown in the microwave. Hobs and ovens only (apart from the occasional tin of meat or baked beans, and even then I'll have to cook something to go with them).

Then it was time for the first lecture of the term! Yay! 

It was uninteresting. 

So later I went to the marketing meeting with all the intention to do some editing to my photo montage on the massively powerful i7 8GB dual screen (with one screen being a horrendously expensive photo-quality screen) computers that we have kicking about in the Queens building, but then Rhys turned up and wanted me to edit the sketch that we made at the end of last term. So I edited it. Then the rest of the marketing group came along and I didn't really get a chance to do my work. Go figure. Anyway, when I got home I cooked some rice and had a chilli con carne and got on with my work.

Tuesday was easily the busiest day of the last week. It was also a massive pain. I got up to go to my lab, and then I found out that it was cancelled. But then it also turned out that my lecture that day was cancelled as well, so I thought I'd be able to relax a little with a day off so I could get on with my coursework. So I strolled into town to print off my photos, meeting up with an Asian guy and a different kind of Asian guy on the way. Printing off photos in Jessops is actually amazingly easy. Sure it took three different machines to read my pen drive, but I wasn't angry. I then had an hour to kill, so me and my Asians went into WH Smith to buy some card and glue. This is where it gets interesting. 

Person: "I'm sorry, but your card has been declined. Do you want to try it again?"

Outside Voice: "Really?"

Inside Voice: "Your machine is shit. It clearly broken. I'm not trusting it. Just hand over some coins."

Outside Voice: "I'll just pay by cash if that's okay."

Little did I know that this slight embarrassment was to be the start of something much, much more complicated. 

So I went into TK Maxx *shiver* to buy some cheap *shiver* kitchenware, because I can't afford expensive stuff. I found a really good wok for £6.99 and I was happy. So I got to the till.

Person: "And what payment method will you be using?"

Outside Voice: "Card."

Inside Voice: "Why the hell do you need to know? If I'm paying by cash, I will take money out of my wallet. If I'm paying by card, then I will obviously put my card in the machine. Are you stupid?"

Person: "Okay, can you just pop your card in the machine."

Outside Voice: "Okay."

Inside Voice: "Christ this better work. Shit I hope this works. Work. Work. Work. Work. Hurry up and tell me that my card is fine and that WHS's card readers are shit already!"

Person: "Sorry, but your card has been declined."

Inside Voice: "Shit on a tin house bricking duck fucking horse radish digestive biscuit malevolent best squatting over the bed!"

Outside Voice: "Oh shit the bed. Do you mind if I pay by cash instead?"

Person: "Certainly."

Inside Voice: "Fuck-cunting wank-shitting bollocks-ripping dick-shredding Robinson's fruit pastilles. Fruit pastilles aren't even made by Robinson's! What the hell do I do now? I know. To the bank!"

So I went to the bank. 

Outside Voice: "So I've just checked my account and it says that I have zero funds available, but my bank balance is over a thousand pounds? But that doesn't make sense anyway because I should only have £500 odd."

Banker: "Well it looks like a company called... Liberty Living have tried to charge you twice, but the second payment is still only pending."

Inside Voice: "Those butt-fucking arse-monkeys!"

Outside Voice: "Okay, I guess I'd better go and shout at them then."

So I got on the phone to Shelley Bellett (the accounts manager at Liberty Park) as soon as I left the bank.

Shelley: "Right well... my records show that we've only charged you once,"

Inside Voice: "Oh you would say that wouldn't you?"

Outside Voice: "Well I have a bit of paper here with all of the days' previous transactions, and the rent payment comes up twice."

Shelley: "I'll have to phone Barclays, who are our bank who the money is kept with. It could be a glitch in their system."

Outside Voice: "Well I'm sure it is."

Inside Voice: "I would normally complain for the benefit of the audience in the future... but she's actually being really helpful. I wonder if she's hot... No, she can't be. She sounds friendly enough, but for god's sake she must at least be in her thirties and not particularly attractive to be working with numbers instead of something more... degrading. I mean umm, something with more face time."

Shelley: "I'll phone you back as soon as I've been in contact with the bank."

Outside Voice: "That's very helpful, thank you very much."

So then I went to get my pictures. 

Crazy Guy at the Till: "Hey! Take a look at this! New toy!"

Outside Voice: *polite chuckle* "Whole lotta fun there."

Inside Voice: "That's just a shitty Fujifilm camera that's not even worth the extortionate amount of money that it costs! Why would I care! In fact, why would you let me have a glance at it and then put it back down with something on top of it? Crap, now I want to have a look at it. Hmm... well played, crazy guy. Well played.".

Soon later Shelley called me back to say that the bank had claimed adamantly that they hadn't charged me twice, and I again made my point about the payment being made twice, so I then went into Liberty Park and showed her the evidence myself. She then showed me her evidence. It was at this point that it seemed that it wasn't Liberty Living's fault at all, and in fact I had to go and shout at the bank again. But instead of going back to talk to Shitty McUseless in the bank, I decided to phone. 

This was a mistake. 

Phone: "For transfer enquiries, press 2."

Inside Voice: "Yes, that sounds exactly what I'm looking for."

Phone: "On the 9th of January, two thousand and twelve."

Inside Voice: "Apparently I was wrong."

Phone: "To return to the previous menu..."

Inside Voice: "Yes, okay..."

Phone: "Service menu. For bank account enquiries, press one. For transfer enquiries, press 2."

Outside Voice: "Fuck!"

I then hung up. I then tried again, looking for what I obviously needed, which was somewhere I could complain, or indeed enquire about a transfer.

Phone: "For transfer enquiries, press 2."

Outside Voice: "OH FUCK OFF!"

I then hung up. I then tried again. 

Phone: "For technical support..."

Inside Voice: "Yes, for god's sake that will do. Just give me a fucking person to talk to who'll lead me in the right direction."

Phone: "Hellooo, how can oi help yoouu?"

Inside Voice: "Oh yeah... Yorkshire Bank. Northerners. Great."

Some time later I got somewhere.

Phone: "Whell it soounds laike it's a shadoew transfer, and the money should bounce back into your account tomorrow."

Outside Voice: "Okay, thanks a lot."

Inside Voice: "That sounds an awful lot like code for 'we fucked up but we didn't want to tell you'. Shadow transfer. How stupid do they think I am?".

Oh well. At least it's sorted now and I have money again. Stupid banks. 

So yeah, on Tuesday I didn't get much of a chance to do any work either. Yesterday, though, I worked my flipping arse off to get it done, and exactly 0134 of this morning I threw the burned CD onto my bed with the rest of the photographs and I leant back in my chair and sighed a sigh of relief. 

You know what's a bonus to that? I got today off, so I was able to watch a film! That's a rare treat these days. I watched Rango, which is actually a surprisingly good film. 

This has been a fucking long blog post. 

Pete out.