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Monday 17 January 2011

“Through memory we travel against time, through forgetfulness we follow its course.”

Hi people. It's time for installment number two. I thought I would make this a bit of a "Let's all laugh at Matt" segment, featuring a story from my life this evening. Hopefully this will help to lighten up The Hinternet which maybe started on a slight downer...

Before I go through the story, those of you who know me well know that I can be a little absent minded about certain small things (saves room for more important stuff...hopefully...) so keep that in mind. My mind is (hopefully) especially full of physics for the impending exams (tomorrow) so i think all common sense has taken a holiday this eve...

Okay. This story, as all good stories do, begins with the fact that I had run out of comfortable and clean boxers. I had either, but not both, thus it would be time to clean them. This meant using the new laundry facilities on campus. I'm usually good with new technology so relishing the break from hectic revision I set off to the laundrette with a smile on my face. I popped into Amigos to get some change on the way and then was at the laundrette with my washing.
Okay, so I worked out fine that the first step was to put in £2 to obtain a cardy thing... done. All good. Beside this is a machine which says top-up, "simple enough" I thought. My first clue was the lack of coin slot on this machine. I entered my shiny new cardy thing and was approched with "Enter Number"... Very Specific...
It seemed to be about debit card length, so I put in my Debit card number: 5068-3783-... I'm joking, those are random numbers (gotcha). However, it was the wrong length. At this point I was being laughed at for not understanding it, so begrudgingly began to read the poster behind explaining what to do. This seemed to be written in a strange dialect, some mix between human and retard I think. I deduced that I needed to go and enter my new cardy thing number on some website to get another number and top up a minimum of £10, which is a bit steep considering I only needed one wash.
Thus I went back home and did all of this to recieve the correct number. They were kind enough to give me £12 imaginary laundry pounds, which is about as useful as a snooze button on a fire alarm to me but that's beside the point. This meant that I was ready to set out into the wide world outside Twyford again, still smiling.
I got up to the top-up machine for my new cardy thingy and proceeded to pat myself down in an increasingly frantic fashion since I had managed to leave the slip of paper with my number which required two numbers and £10 to obtain on my desk at home. At this point, people seemed to find this even more funny than last time so I begrudgingly picked up my washing and headed back to retrieve it.
A short walk later again, missing slightly more of the original smile I got to the laundrette and an annoyingly useful thought crossed my mind, "Washing powder, crap" It's off to amigos I go, to spend an extortionate £3 on washing powder, which im gonna use once.
Finally I made it to the top-up machine inserted my card, and got the imaginary laudry money onto my card and started my washing.

You will hopefully all be glad to know that my washing is done (though I didn't have the heart to use the dryers so its hanging in my room) my smile is surprisingly still around (If you can't laugh at yourself... ) but my love for circuitgroup laundry company has diminished to 0.
So this was one expensive wash, in terms of money time. But it hopefully made for good blog material and that's the important thing.


In future I promise to post more non-menial things than just "I did some washing" :p
I also apologise for the length, it got away from me... Back to revision now (finished my Viennese Whirls)
Back to revision...

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Friday 14 January 2011

Beginnings and Endings.

 Hi people who are interested.
It has come to my attention that most people seem to know that I have a blog, despite a lack of posts as of yet.
Thus I have decided that now is as good a time as any to start writing it.

This blog is not aiming to be anything in particular so don't expect it to be specifically funny or have hidden messages behind my words. It is just here for people to find out about my life in Yale over the coming months.

So why start now, when I'm not going out there for a month? Firstly it is precisely a month before I start there, so this seems like a fairly reasonable time. The second reason is to do with GameSoc. I have been president of the University Tabletop Gaming Society for 2 years and have run it for 3. It (and all of it's members) are very close to my heart so it is sad for me to pass over Presidency to a very capable young man, and my friend, Le-Roy. I have every confidence that he will look after it and make sure that it runs as successfully as it has been over the last year. GameSoc has allowed me to meet some of the closest friends I have and I consider every person in it a cherished friend. Its very true that board gamers are amongst the nicest people in the world! I would like to thank all of them who made my last few gamesoc's really really enjoyable.
On a happy note, I have found a gaming group in New Haven (thanks to BGG), where I should be able to get my fill of rpgs and board games!
Im on the back row at the left (taken at "Suit up for GameSoc")


So with the Presidency passed on I look to the future (which at the moment only seems to be exams and revision...) After these have finished I will have 1 week of partying at Uni, followed by a week at home and then I am hoping to fly out on the 13th Feb or so (will update the date when I book flights) This will mean leaving my entire life here, including my wonderful girlfriend of over three and a half year and all of my friends here, I'm going to miss all of them such a lot.
Me and my Soph at my last GameSoc as President
Just to make sure everybody knows, I will be working at Yale for 11 months and am very scared and excited about it, in varying proportions with time and space! I'm really looking forward to seeing America and working at the Nuclear Structure Lab for Prof. Werner.

Just a quick note about this blog; It will be mostly used to keep people/stalkers back in the UK up to date with what is going on in my life over in the USA, thus I will be mostly posting at intermediate intervals (basically whenever anything interesting happens in my life). I apologise for the first post being on a slight downer, but it isn't meant to be. I hope that people enjoy keeping up to date with what I'm doing in the USA, if you want to talk to me in a more personal way than this, then you can use my email address (ask me).

I'm now slightly using this as procrastination, so should sign off and hopefully this post will spread itself around people who are interested by word of mouth, as the fact that I have a blog did. I'll probably see most of you soon. Stay tuned, and in the style of my favouite podcast, well done for reaching the end.

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