Year one. The summer of 2006 an 18 year old boy failed miserably at his final exams in high-school back in his home country. Let’s say he got a grade the equivalent of 30% and he couldn’t get in the school he wanted to because the required grade for that school was 70%. Regardless though the final exams, that certain boy had an average overall grade on his high-school diploma let’s say the equivalent of 70%.
That boy was smart though. He knew he didn’t stand a chance so he sat for some exams that got him a place in some random U.K universities. He wanted to go to D.C.U to study journalism but since he couldn’t because he failed for only 1 point he had to pick one out of 5 other English Universities. He closed his eyes, listened to his heart, it wasn’t beating and he fell in a comma for 10 days. No, really he just picked the University of Sunderland.
He spent the rest of his summer with his best friend. Making plans on throwing piss and water water- bombs on a guy that has stolen the boy’s t-shirt, chain smoking, drinking 3 cups of triple shot large coffees in 3 hours shaking and laughing, coming up with jokes and playing prank phone calls. Then when the night used to come the boy and his friend had great aspirations of finding girls in the centre of Athens but their plans used to sink down the gutter as they preferred sitting outside clubs with a beer from a big liquor store and just talking and acting stupid. The summer went by really fast and the boy had to pack his bags and leave the country. After getting drunk with his best friend and nominating the “Mister Fall Out Boy Award 2006” to a random guy with a ridiculous fringe in his face, the boy went back and packed his stuff and flew to Newcastle U.K. From there, he was taken to Sunderland and to the student accommodations of the University.
Strangely enough he felt no fear leaving home as that’s what he always wanted to do. Travel and see the world. Meet new people and experience a different way of living. He arrived in Sunderland and to the reception of the accommodations which was filled with students. He waited in line for about 5 minutes and he was told to wait till he was escorted to his room. Sitting outside the reception smoking the boy met a German guy and a Canadian girl. They were 24 year old and they were there for their MA. They were the first friends the boy achieved to make.
After a long wait he was escorted to his room by a really short Japanese/Chinese girl. –I am not being racist, it’s just that I honestly can’t tell the difference, as some people might not be able to tell the difference between Greeks and Italians or me from a cow. Plus I say “really short” because she was shorter than me and I’m only 5,5 if not 5,4.- There the boy met his flat mates. He was distant because...he was. Pretty fast they all became friends and they had to put up with the boy’s behavior. (and the boy is thankful for that)
Then the boy made some more friends, stayed up all night playing guitar, writing songs about handicaps being pushed down the stairs and passed the tradition of chain smoking to a new friend he made. The months passed and even though that boy preferred to stay away from all the University people, call it instinct, he became friends with a then long haired skinny guy, who later on revealed his real identity which was fat.
The boy had one common thing, with that specific new friend of his, that kick-started their friendship. An activity that it seems that they both loved. They used to hang at the University’s bar during the day in between lectures and take naps on the sofas till the next class.
So that’s how the first year passed. Taking naps in between lectures on the bar’s black leather sofa, hanging out till late playing guitar and filling up his room and then his friend’s room with smoke, talking on the phone with his best friend for hours, going to gigs with a guy that taught him that it is actually important wearing a seat belt –experiencing different cultures- and failing a class or two. Well there was drama too of course but if you want to hear drama watch a soap opera or a talk show. Or if you want some real hardcore drama look at the person sitting next to you.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Life is wonderful
Lately I’ve been counting down the days, hours, minutes and maybe seconds till I get on the plane that will take me home. Sometimes, I even check my back pack for my airplane ticket just to make sure that it’s in there. The reason why I do that is because I tend to lose stuff really easily, or else I’m a bit of a moron when it comes to keeping things and not losing them.
On the other hand the reason I am counting down the time, like a prisoner waiting for his release date, is not because I don’t like it here, it’s because I miss my friends –who can be counted on the fingers of my one hand…maybe take some fingers from the second one too- from back home, I miss my family and I miss my cat. I was recently informed from my mother that my cat took a crap on the front door after my brother returned from Italy and my cat didn’t see me walking in behind my brother.
But the point of this blog is not for me to sit here and whine about how much I miss my home and hometown and friends and blah blah blah. Because everyone misses something and most likely after I leave this town and get back to Greece I bet my head that there will be something that I’ll be missing from here too, even though I’ll be having everything that I miss now. Life is strange and life is not fair. Plus life is cruel but I am saving this cliché for later on because it will be more appropriate.
The point of this blog is the word “REJECTION” that recently I’ve come to become very familiar with. Even embrace the meaning of it and maybe secretly after a very long and not charming list of a 4 year mixture of failures and successes , maybe even to adore and need it. Masochistic? Maybe. But also true. I was on the phone with a friend of mine and I was telling him that if I stopped being rejected then we should expect something like the end of the world to happen and nothing can sums it better than his answer: “So true…”
Now, to all of you out there that cry out and moan about being rejected I have two REALLY PROFOUND things to say. Ready? Okay. 1: You’re not the only one, 2: The list of rejections will grow longer you will not always be accepted and embraced. So quit crying. Life is cruel.(see I told you that it will suit better here)
And now for a closure here’s the top 3 rejections I had and I can name from the top of my head. And I am very proud of them:
1: My personal tutor stopped replying to my e-mails
2: The plumber came and fixed the errors in every flat but mine where I live
3: My pitch for a feature got rejected by TWO magazines, waiting for the third rejection anytime soon
I am growing older. Not growing balder – yet-. I am becoming more bitter day by day. I am becoming an adult. Life is wonderful.
P.S: That's Chester my cat in the picture. If you're lucky enough he might take a shit on your door too.
Monday, 9 November 2009
Quotes And Boredom
When I started writing on here, trying to keep up with the blogging hype it was part of my course. I never quite liked it and I’m still not into this because it’s useless. I remember something that one of my lecturers said about blogging that went something like this: “The hard part is not to begin a blog but to keep it going and to do that you need motivation.” I paraphrased it a little but the point he was trying to make remains the same.- I hope.
Well the reason why I decided to write another entry on here, is because I have something to add on that quote. It’s not only motivation that will keep you going writing on your blog but also boredom. A moment when you have been on facebook, been through various videos on youtube, checked e-mails more than once just to realize that nothing could have been sent to you in the last one minute and then you sit back and decide to write an entry. About what bothers you or maybe what amazes you. Maybe an entry about an event that was in the news. BAM BARABAM BAAAAAAAAAAM.
You sit down, type down a few lines about one of the pre-mentioned subjects and you’re done. Feeling better. What is going on today, the way I see it, is that people know how to blog better than taking a crap. Although they’re quite similar. I JUST TOOK A CRAP ON THE WEBSPACE AND I FEEL BETTER.
Well in this situation, I have another quote, again from a University lecturer. She wrote it on the back of my final project and I find it funny and true even though I believe that she was not kidding at all. Anyway, the quote which was standing next to my mark was this: “Nobody cares what you think”. And the mark was low.
I'm hungry, cigaretteless and nobody cares what I think. I'm going to go and get some food and cigarettes since I'm done blogging about it.
Well the reason why I decided to write another entry on here, is because I have something to add on that quote. It’s not only motivation that will keep you going writing on your blog but also boredom. A moment when you have been on facebook, been through various videos on youtube, checked e-mails more than once just to realize that nothing could have been sent to you in the last one minute and then you sit back and decide to write an entry. About what bothers you or maybe what amazes you. Maybe an entry about an event that was in the news. BAM BARABAM BAAAAAAAAAAM.
You sit down, type down a few lines about one of the pre-mentioned subjects and you’re done. Feeling better. What is going on today, the way I see it, is that people know how to blog better than taking a crap. Although they’re quite similar. I JUST TOOK A CRAP ON THE WEBSPACE AND I FEEL BETTER.
Well in this situation, I have another quote, again from a University lecturer. She wrote it on the back of my final project and I find it funny and true even though I believe that she was not kidding at all. Anyway, the quote which was standing next to my mark was this: “Nobody cares what you think”. And the mark was low.
I'm hungry, cigaretteless and nobody cares what I think. I'm going to go and get some food and cigarettes since I'm done blogging about it.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Ooooh We're On Fire
It has become something like a tradition in Athens Greece, during the summer time –mostly during July and August- a fire to be spreading and burning a great extend of forest ground but also residences.
Same images on T.V every year around same time on the evening news, residents running amok trying to stop the fire and complaining of not having enough help from the authorities.
But I’m one of those who always see the light at the end of the tunnel. I always find happiness and reason to believe even in the toughest of the situations. Think about these facts: 1 Greece, 2 Athens, 3 fire, 4 evening news, 5 top story in 3 international channels…and number 6…of course…*drum roll* FAME!
1: http://www.newser.com/article/d99nlhe00/greek-firefighters-contain-blazes-near-athens.html
2:http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Greece-Forest-Fire-Villages-Near-Athens-Threatened-By-Growing-Blaze/Article/200908415367012?lpos=World_News_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15367012_Greece_Forest_Fire%3A_Villages_Near_Athens_Threatened_By_Growing_Blaze
3:http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/22/wildfire-rages-outside-greek-capital/
That’s fame for us folks and don’t pretend you don’t just love it. We are the Greeks who own beautiful islands and charge crazy amounts of money for our famous greek salads and sell cheap impure alcohol to teenage English tourists and then complain about them passing out on the streets, we are the Greeks who became famous for the 2004 Olympic Games and our laziness (we are the Greeks who invented homosexuality as one might would like to add to that…); and to this wall of glory, the bush-fire and conflagration have been added as a “glorified” tradition since 2007.
Two years have gone by and we’re still keeping strong. Burning down the forests, building resorts and villas on the burnt ground. Let me reveal a secret here, that the news won’t tell…the fires and the residents running in panic trying to save the properties is not an accident. It’s another sort of Big Brother, it’s more like an emergency test for the end of the world. It’s an emergency test turned into a reality show which is broadcasted not as a television programme but through the news. Clever huh? Beat that if you can. Take it away Bruce...
Same images on T.V every year around same time on the evening news, residents running amok trying to stop the fire and complaining of not having enough help from the authorities.
But I’m one of those who always see the light at the end of the tunnel. I always find happiness and reason to believe even in the toughest of the situations. Think about these facts: 1 Greece, 2 Athens, 3 fire, 4 evening news, 5 top story in 3 international channels…and number 6…of course…*drum roll* FAME!
1: http://www.newser.com/article/d99nlhe00/greek-firefighters-contain-blazes-near-athens.html
2:http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Greece-Forest-Fire-Villages-Near-Athens-Threatened-By-Growing-Blaze/Article/200908415367012?lpos=World_News_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15367012_Greece_Forest_Fire%3A_Villages_Near_Athens_Threatened_By_Growing_Blaze
3:http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/08/22/wildfire-rages-outside-greek-capital/
That’s fame for us folks and don’t pretend you don’t just love it. We are the Greeks who own beautiful islands and charge crazy amounts of money for our famous greek salads and sell cheap impure alcohol to teenage English tourists and then complain about them passing out on the streets, we are the Greeks who became famous for the 2004 Olympic Games and our laziness (we are the Greeks who invented homosexuality as one might would like to add to that…); and to this wall of glory, the bush-fire and conflagration have been added as a “glorified” tradition since 2007.
Two years have gone by and we’re still keeping strong. Burning down the forests, building resorts and villas on the burnt ground. Let me reveal a secret here, that the news won’t tell…the fires and the residents running in panic trying to save the properties is not an accident. It’s another sort of Big Brother, it’s more like an emergency test for the end of the world. It’s an emergency test turned into a reality show which is broadcasted not as a television programme but through the news. Clever huh? Beat that if you can. Take it away Bruce...
Friday, 3 July 2009
The Word
In a former blog of mine I was talking about 20 year old University students that after 2 years or 3 studying in a University, have learnt EVERYTHING about politics when infact what they know best is to produce idiotic puns and reciting words that not even a book in the fascist Germany of 1940 would have.
You can't be left, you can't be right, you can't be labelled as a "commie", "anarchist" or whatever label you want to put. But you can do that and look like a rumbling idiot if you wish, because simply you can't know everything and have opinion about EVERYTHING when you're only 20 or 21 years old. Get it straight.
"OOOOH look at me I'm gonna start rumbling about politics like I know every little thing...I'll tell all my friends and try to get the message across for someone that doesn't even know me and probably doesn't give two flying fucks if I exist or not...you know what else is so cool...using the word "commie" it gives an essence of 40's in my speech and makes me look sooooo cool" good job...that's why you're officially a MORON...it seems that you did your homework before you get out of your parents' loving arms and out to the cruel society and you're ready to impress everyone. Good Luck
You can't be left, you can't be right, you can't be labelled as a "commie", "anarchist" or whatever label you want to put. But you can do that and look like a rumbling idiot if you wish, because simply you can't know everything and have opinion about EVERYTHING when you're only 20 or 21 years old. Get it straight.
"OOOOH look at me I'm gonna start rumbling about politics like I know every little thing...I'll tell all my friends and try to get the message across for someone that doesn't even know me and probably doesn't give two flying fucks if I exist or not...you know what else is so cool...using the word "commie" it gives an essence of 40's in my speech and makes me look sooooo cool" good job...that's why you're officially a MORON...it seems that you did your homework before you get out of your parents' loving arms and out to the cruel society and you're ready to impress everyone. Good Luck
Saturday, 7 March 2009
Here piggy piggy...
Well, this the first time that I write a second entry in such a small period of time, but as you will see further down there is a reason why.
We are all aware of these new “cool” screamo bands, with a lead singer looking like a girl and screaming like he is being penetrated by an army of stud-horses. You know the ones that wear real tight jeans and believe with passion in Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Worse than hearing a 20-something year old guy with long hair, who before every song mentions the name of Jesus Christ like he’s met him, is watching kids on youtube trying to imitate the “abilities” of the "singer" by doing what they call “pig squeals”.
Believe it or not, a random guy, that thank god I don’t know or I’ll ever get to know, posted a video as a challenge towards his “breed”. Apparently, being able to do that, a good pig squealing noise, requires some sort of a talent.
I can do the sound of a running horse, the sound of a duck, the sound of a cat, the sound of a cat in heat AND I can make loads of fart noises using my mouth and my hand or my hand and my armpit. Do I have a talent?
Now I fully understand what a musician that I interviewed as part of my course, meant when he said “as some people shouldn’t cook, some others simply shouldn’t make music”
Is it alright if someone punches one of these guys or P.E.T.A will go crazy and come after you?
And if you found the previous video distrubing...here's something funny..just look at the guy's face.
We are all aware of these new “cool” screamo bands, with a lead singer looking like a girl and screaming like he is being penetrated by an army of stud-horses. You know the ones that wear real tight jeans and believe with passion in Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Worse than hearing a 20-something year old guy with long hair, who before every song mentions the name of Jesus Christ like he’s met him, is watching kids on youtube trying to imitate the “abilities” of the "singer" by doing what they call “pig squeals”.
Believe it or not, a random guy, that thank god I don’t know or I’ll ever get to know, posted a video as a challenge towards his “breed”. Apparently, being able to do that, a good pig squealing noise, requires some sort of a talent.
I can do the sound of a running horse, the sound of a duck, the sound of a cat, the sound of a cat in heat AND I can make loads of fart noises using my mouth and my hand or my hand and my armpit. Do I have a talent?
Now I fully understand what a musician that I interviewed as part of my course, meant when he said “as some people shouldn’t cook, some others simply shouldn’t make music”
Is it alright if someone punches one of these guys or P.E.T.A will go crazy and come after you?
And if you found the previous video distrubing...here's something funny..just look at the guy's face.
Thursday, 5 March 2009
A death a week...or so I think.
On Saturday, 8th of February, a man got stabbed around 3 times in the center of the city I live in. Just the idea of getting stabbed is scary, but what occurs to me as scarier is the fact that something similar happens every month or every other month.
Someone will be found dead in the river, someone will jump off the bridge or even worse someone will get stabbed or die in a fight.
While having a cigarette with one of my house-mates I mentioned to him my concern about how everyone is keep dieing in this town, and he answered that this happens in every city in the world, any time.
Don’t get me wrong here, I do know that people are meant to die and I believe that I have comforted myself with that idea; but I have comforted myself with the idea of death from natural causes and not by a knife or jumping of a high bridge.
I heard about that man getting stabbed from a friend of mine who was on a night out in town, so I thought to confirm what I heard, by looking on the local newspaper’s website before I start writing anything on here and being inaccurate and make a fool of myself.
Well, after a short research on the newspaper’s website I found out that I was not being irrational for worrying about that.
Here are the links to the pages where you can read all about it and as you can see it’s only a month or so that separates the “stabbing events”.
7 January 2009: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/Man-stabbed-as-he-sat.4850319.jp
16 Febuary 2009: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/Man-charged-after-double-stabbing.4983564.jp
Here’s another one that only happened yesterday, not in Sunderland but close enough, Newcastle.
5 March 2009: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2008/07/04/man-in-court-over-double-stabbing-in-newcastle-72703-21268177/
I decided to expand my research and check for same events on other cities in U.K and as it seems, stabbing people here is more like a monthly tradition.
Some might say that it is the cultural difference that I don't understand or I'm scared of; but I’m not worried about the English beer, English accent, manners, music, or food because from what I’ve seen until now all these things are fine and every person I’ve met have treated me with respect and really friendly; what I’m worried about, is that weird "stabbing thing" that is going on, that I like to call “monthly stabbing tradition”.
If two months go by without someone getting stabbed I quit smoking and I start going to church every Sunday. My cigarettes and "God" as my witness.
Someone will be found dead in the river, someone will jump off the bridge or even worse someone will get stabbed or die in a fight.
While having a cigarette with one of my house-mates I mentioned to him my concern about how everyone is keep dieing in this town, and he answered that this happens in every city in the world, any time.
Don’t get me wrong here, I do know that people are meant to die and I believe that I have comforted myself with that idea; but I have comforted myself with the idea of death from natural causes and not by a knife or jumping of a high bridge.
I heard about that man getting stabbed from a friend of mine who was on a night out in town, so I thought to confirm what I heard, by looking on the local newspaper’s website before I start writing anything on here and being inaccurate and make a fool of myself.
Well, after a short research on the newspaper’s website I found out that I was not being irrational for worrying about that.
Here are the links to the pages where you can read all about it and as you can see it’s only a month or so that separates the “stabbing events”.
7 January 2009: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/Man-stabbed-as-he-sat.4850319.jp
16 Febuary 2009: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/Man-charged-after-double-stabbing.4983564.jp
Here’s another one that only happened yesterday, not in Sunderland but close enough, Newcastle.
5 March 2009: http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2008/07/04/man-in-court-over-double-stabbing-in-newcastle-72703-21268177/
I decided to expand my research and check for same events on other cities in U.K and as it seems, stabbing people here is more like a monthly tradition.
Some might say that it is the cultural difference that I don't understand or I'm scared of; but I’m not worried about the English beer, English accent, manners, music, or food because from what I’ve seen until now all these things are fine and every person I’ve met have treated me with respect and really friendly; what I’m worried about, is that weird "stabbing thing" that is going on, that I like to call “monthly stabbing tradition”.
If two months go by without someone getting stabbed I quit smoking and I start going to church every Sunday. My cigarettes and "God" as my witness.
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