Why everything annoys me

In my opinion, there's 2 kinds of people in the world:
1. The kind of people who are generally happy most of the time, with the occasional day where they're a bit down, but nothing that a cup of tea and some Big Bang Theory (or whatever American sitcom takes your fancy) can't cure.
2. The kind of people who are annoyed by everything and everyone and call inanimate objects 'wankers' when they drop them on the floor, and who have an occasional happy day, which doesn't last long.

In case you haven't realised, I fall into the second category.

Recently I've noticed a pattern emerging in my hatred for everything. Usually it peaks at the start of the week, and by the weekend I've slowly gone back down to being a normal human being that isn't easily wound up. Sometimes. This week's been a particularly hatey one though. And yes, I know it's only Tuesday. I think the main reason for it revolves around a certain lesson I have once a week, every Monday for 2 hours. That lesson is statistics.

Statistics is the one thing (okay, maybe not the one thing but very high on my list along with parking, buses and just genuinely having no time) I hate about my course. Unfortunately - and God knows why - it's an important part of any psychology degree. Don't get me wrong, a correlation and some descriptives showing the mean and all that, fine, that's understandable, but when you go into all the shit we've been going into lately, you just stop and think "fuck off. I really don't care anymore." To be honest, somewhere there probably is a logical reason that explains fully why they make it so complicated, but I've been doing stats for over a year now, and I do not see that reason one little bit, other than to fuck with my head.

It's actually now come to the point where I have been considering withdrawing from my course completely just so I don't have to deal with it. I know the common sense thing to do would be to tell someone and ask for help, but in all honesty, I know it won't do any good. Why? Because statistics is boring. It's one of the most boring things on earth, and not only do I not have the motivation to go to a help session or see a tutor about it, I also know for a fact, I wouldn't pay attention to it, because it's so incredibly dull.

I am aware that if I quit uni just because of some numbers (and that's really all they are at the end of the day) I will be taking a massive step towards a huge debt, a permanent career in Poundland and loss of respect from several people, so it's probably not the wisest thing to do, I really do see that. I'll probably just end up winging it like last year. At least there's no exam this year.

So having established why my mood fluctuates at the beginning of every week, it's clear that anyone who knows me would do their best not to annoy me. However, for strangers, this is not the case. And I am talking about those who share my bus journeys with me.

Before people jump down my throat about me being anti-social, let me just point this out - yes, I am aware that these people are complete strangers and don't know what kind of day I'm having, or the fact that I don't like people and wish to be left alone on the bus etc etc etc, but it's downright annoying, and I'm sure there's lots of people who will back that up.

Anyway, there were 2 incidents this week that spurred to mind, one of which will probably make me sound like a horrible, anti-social, ignorant bitch (yes, I know this blog in general makes me come off that way), it certainly made me feel like one. The other, just a minor annoyance that I'm sure would have pissed anyone off.

Okay so the first happened on Monday. Mondays I now like to call "Statistics-misery-wanting-to-cry-the-moment-you-step-off-the-bus-Mondays." Basically, I came out of stats in that usual mood, pushed my way to the front of the bus que (hardly a que, more like a crowd) and managed to get a seat pretty much straight away. I sat in one of the priority seats because I wanted to be close to the door, as I could see the bus would be full, and when it's full it gets very claustrophobic which makes me feel a bit panicky, and I always feel better if I'm near the door.

Anyway, people got on the bus, as they do and it drove off, after a couple of minutes, several people at the front were tossing me dirty looks. I thought nothing of it, as I'm not a smiley person and I sometimes give off dirty looks without realising, I thought they were just reciperocating them. Anyway, I carried on with my daydreaming and such, then this stuck up girl suddenly looks directly at me and says "it's disgusting the way society is these days." I wondered what the hell was going on, but still, I took no notice.

When I finally reached my stop I noticed why I'd seemed to be the most hated person on the bus. The stuck up girl's friend was pregnant and I hadn't given up my seat. To be fair, no one else in the priority seats had, but for some reason all the anger seemed to be directed at me, as if I was sat in the 'pregnancy seat.'

First of all, let me just say that I honestly did not notice this girl was pregnant until I got up to get off the bus. Had I noticed she was pregnant sooner, I would have given her my seat. If she had asked, I would have given her my seat. Had her bitchy friend asked, I would have given up my seat. But no one asked and I was oblivious the the fact she had a bump, so I stayed put.

What upset me though was that the pregnant girl's friend was the one bad mouthing me - it'd be understandable if it was the other way around, but it wasn't. The pregnant girl was actually quite friendly, chatting to the bus driver and what not, but her friend just seemed so bitchy. To be fair, yes, she was probably just a good person standing up for her friend, but surely the decent thing to do would have been to come up to me and politely say "excuse me, do you mind giving up your seat for my friend as she's pregnant and wants to sit down?" but no, instead she gave a bitchy comment to a bus full of strangers.

At first I felt like a really horrible person, but then I realised, at the end of the day, if this girl wanted to sit down that badly, she could have asked. After all, if you don't ask, you don't get. I wasn't the only one on the bus in a priority seat, and the fact I didn't know she was pregnant was an honest mistake. For most of the journey she had her back to me while she was talking to the bus driver anyway so I couldn't see the bump anyway. I probably shouldn't have been in the priority seat, but someone would have sat in it anyway if I didn't. And in my defence, I'd had a shitty day, I just wanted to get on the bus and go home as quickly as possible, and for that reason, I didn't think it was compulsory to be checking every single passenger for a baby bump or a walking aid.

I do realise I sound like a horrible person saying that, but let me reassure you, if you're ever pregnant and unlucky enough to share a bus with me, I will give up my seat for you. And if I don't, I probably haven't noticed, so just ask.

Wow, what normally would have took me about 20 minutes or so took me about an hour to write. That's what chatting on Facebook does.

Moving on, the general bus annoyance today was this. I sat at the front of the bus (priority seat again, but only about 8 people got on today) and when the bus stopped at Asda, a couple got on laden with carrier bags. The bloke sits in the seat opposite me, while the girl sits next to me and then they both dumped their bags around my feet.

Again, I was annoyed because I wanted to be left alone. But also because it would making getting off, a reasonably easy task, quite a difficult one, as I would have to clamber all over their shopping. There's also a designated area on the bus for people to put luggage and shopping etc, which they could have used as opposed to scattering it all over my feet. Not to mention the fact there were 2 seats on the other side of the bus they could have had, which would have allowed them to be all lovey with each other without me feeling like I was caught in their romantic fuck pie.

I find it hard to believe I started this blog post at around 5.30. It's now 9.07pm. In that time however I have been chatting on Facebook about various things such as the dire state of the NHS, uni, kids, jobs and the situation with the pregnant girl on the bus. I've also had my dinner, watched the latest How I Met Your Mother and an episode of The IT Crowd and done the washing up, which can I just add, was like a distressing game of Jenga.

That's it from me you'll be pleased to know. Sorry this blog didn't have more of an interesting subject. More from me next time.

Changes

I think when I look back on this year, it will probably be a year where everything changed. Big time. I mean, everything tends to change over time, but this year so much has happened and I don't tend to cope well with it at all, so I'm quite surprised at how I've managed to not make a scene or just generally cry at everything.

I won't go into everything, as that's what my end of year blog will be for, as I did last year. These last few months have been the most prominent though.

It all started in September. The first thing that happened at the time I thought was a good change, in that I passed my driving test. After 2 and a half years of pure misery at my failures, the lovely lovely man who examined me was kind enough to pass me - a week before my theory test ran out and I would have had to start all over again. All was going well with my driving provided that you didn't include the parking. I had some nice drives around on my own, particularly to my Mum's new place which was a 15 minute drive from where we were staying, but after I stopped at Asda on the way home, one bitch decided it was necessary to yell at me about my parking and basically took a shit on every ounce of confidence I had built up over the last few days.

I basically ended up dangerously close to her car as I was reversing out (note I said close, not actually touching it) and I pulled back in because she was stood there watching me, which I'm sure many people will agree with me is terribly offputting. She then comes up to the window where I politely apologise and say that I've just passed my test and I'm not very good at parking yet. Instead I get the following:

Bitch: "Did you hit it?"
Me: "No I didn't."
Bitch: "Did you hit my car?"
Me: "I didn't, I swear I didn't hit it. I'm really sorry, I've just passed my test, I'm not so good at parking."
Bitch: "Well you need to look at the way you're fucking parking love, that's crap."

This was followed by a few more "did you hit it?" type quotes, until she eventually drove off. I tried reversing out again and by this point the woman on the other side of me had come back and was watching. Cue her coming up to my window and me bursting into tears about what this absolute cow had just said to me. Then the man sorting the trolleys comes over. I was incredibly lucky in what happened next, this lady offered to reverse out for me, but was worried about hitting her car, so the trolley man very kindly pulled out of the space and straightened the car up for me. When I told them about what this bitch had said they both sympathised and said she shouldn't have done it and that it'll get easier with time.

To the nice lady and the trolley man: thank you very much for being so nice to me and helping me out.
To the bitch who had a go at me: fuck you.

It's just over a month since that happened and my parking has slightly improved, but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's good. Oh, and I got a parking ticket too, but I won't go into that, mainly because it'll set me off on a rant about my university's parking.


Another thing that happened was my mum moved house. Not necessarily a change for me personally, but it was quite daunting at the time, given the fact that the place where she moved to was an absolute shit hole until they decorated it a few weeks ago.

Seriously, I'm talking a stench of marijuana filling the rooms, yellow walls from smoke fumes, dog shit all over the patio etc etc. Still, they've done it all up nice now and you honestly wouldn't think it was previously a shithole if you saw it now.

I felt I had been evicted from my room, as the spare room in this new place is so small it doesn't even fit a proper bed. Well, it would, but nothing else really. We do still stay there when we go home though, just on an air matress which is...nice.

As you can see, Sooty took the move very well.

Speaking of my Mum, she also got married this week. So I now have a step-dad. And a very nice one at that. It did mean having to take a day off of uni and endure 5 hours of travelling within about 36 hours, but it was still worth it to be able to go to the wedding and see them get married.

I also started my second year of uni this month which is...nice. Most of my current modules are all coursework based which is good news, unfortunately, all of my summer modules are not. Which sucks. Another unfortunate thing is the amount of textbooks I've been told to buy. Frankly, I don't have the money and even if I did I don't think I could physically and mentally manage to spend what would probably be about £250 on books that I'm only going to use for one term. I spent £40 on one book last year that I was told would last for the whole 3 years, but on starting this year, I was told not to use it when writing essays as I need to be using a more broad range of sources. Great. So this year is involving lots of trips to the library and spending endless time doing reading so that I have some reasonably okay notes for when I have to write assignmetns. I did that at the beginning of last year. That habit ended after about a month, so we'll see.

You'd think given the fact that I can now drive, and that most of my rants were based on having to endure a bus journey most days would lessen the amount of complaints I have, but lets just say, I can only drive to uni 2 days a week due to the fact that these are both 9am starts, and you are only able to get a parking space before 9am. 14 car parks. I have access to one of them. Super.

Looking at them in writing, it doesn't actually seem that much has changed to be honest. Still, it killed half an hour while I wrote this. Unfortunately you may have lost however long it took you to read it and probably won't get that back. My apologies. I will try and make sure my next blog is worth reading. Still, if you did read it, I thank you.

Steps are back. My 8 year old self cries with joy.

Growing up I was obsessed with Steps. I don't mean that lightly. I'm talking posters everywhere, owning every album, every single, learning the dance moves, knowing all the song lyrics, crush on H, over-playing their Wembley tour VHS kind of obsessed. Which is why on Boxing Day 2001, poor little 9 year old me, along with countless others, was crushed when upon learning that they had split.

Obviously that didn't stop me from still playing their music. And I'm not talking a few years after they split, I'm talking up until now. Even now Steps still have pride of place in my iTunes library.

But lucky me and countless other Steps-fans, they've reuinted after 10 years. I don't know about anyone else, but I've been watching the show about it on Sky Living, and for me, it was a huge shock to see so much bitching and rivalry between them all. They started out in 1997, so I would have only been 5 when they first came about and wouldn't have known what bitching and rivalry was, but for the 5 years that they were together, I remember watching their tours, and their Greatest Hits VHS (even mentioning VHS makes me feel old and I'm not even 20 yet) and thinking "wow, they're the best of friends. That's just AWESOME."

Embarassing as this was even to type, I remember me and my friend down the road would pretend to 'be' them, I was Claire, she was Lisa, and we'd put on shows for our Mums in each others' living rooms singing their songs and that was a pretty huge chunk of my childhood. H was also my first crush, as I'm sure he was to many fans back then, and I had a poster of him in my bedroom that I'd love to gaze at.

Unfortunately, unlike the lucky fans that got to see them live, I never did. Yes, yes, get your violins out. So my only experience of their concerts were on my over played VHS's of their Wembley concert and their Gold: Greatest Hits concert. However, I managed to get the experience of seeing the latter live on TV as an early Christmas present - my mum paid for it for me to watch live on Sky Box Office and I remember it was the best thing I'd gotten that year. Whilst my Mum couldn't believe she'd spent £9.99 on pay-per-view, I was in my absolute element. I do remember Lisa, Faye and Claire crying at the end of it though, and I remember thinking "why are they crying?!" Little did I know that they'd actually split an hour before they went on stage for that show - in fact, I found that out about 2 weeks ago while watching the Sky documentary.

The documentary pretty much spoiled my naive child's view of Steps that I had about them all being BFFs and it being all super-amazingly awesome, but I guess that's growing up for you. Never again will I watch one of their music videos and think "Aww they're such good friends!" which is a shame, but those videos still provided me of hours of enjoyment when I was bored because I wasn't the kid of child to go outside and ride my bike. Because I couldn't ride a bike. But that's a different story.

Anyway, I'm secretly thrilled (alright, publically thrilled once I publish this blog) that Steps are back together. I don't know if it'll work, but by the sounds of things, people seem to be excited about it, and I really hope it goes down well. For one, I can now start listening to their albums on the bus again without feeling like I never stepped out of the 90s era. Steps were a huge part of my childhood and like I said, I was obsessed with them. I don't see myself being obsessed again, as I don't tend to have obsessions anymore (other than collecting DVDs, a fear of germs and keeping my DVD's alphabetised), but I can safely say there will still be a place for them in my 90s-music-loving heart. Aww.

Pre Second Year Excitement

Given the fact that I spent a vast majority of my first year at university complaining, threatening to quit and moaning about the fact I hadn't yet made a new BFF, I thought now would be the time where I begin to dread my return to uni in October. However, I was wrong, as I'm actually looking forward to going back.

I think that all the back to school stuff in shops has made me eager to buy supplies, although I can't afford any, and there really isn't that much that I need, aside from a folder or two and a refill pad, which I bought on my occassional raid in Paperchase the last time I was in Bath. Buying school supplies was always my favourite part of going back to school, as depressing as that sounds. I love how you just buy everything all new and pristine, and it gives you a nice sense of organisation. Like I said, it's not even really necessary to buy a pencil case for uni really. Although I have one. But unlike at school where I'd get a fancy one for £4.99 in WHSmith with pockets galore, I'm reusing last year's which cost 69p in the first place and is now covered in graffiti from where I was sat in tediously dull lectures.

A few of my friends from home didn't go to uni last year because they were doing a year at college or an extra year of A-level or deffering their place till this year, and now's the time where I'm seeing people like the pages of their Freshers' events on Facebook and talking about buying kitchen supplies and other crap needed for flying the nest. It makes me feel a bit meh really, because I never got to go on the big 'kitchen shop' - I was given a load of second hand stuff.

Actually, reading that back sounds a bit ungrateful, which wasn't the intention. My mum's boyfriend moved in with her about a month before I moved out, so he had loads of kitchen stuff to get rid of, which was passed down to me. It saved a hell of a lot of money, and we did get pretty much everything we needed, but I would have liked to go on the big kitchen shop. Eeeh, one day.

I'm strangely optimistic about my second year of uni if I'm honest, although deep down I know not a lot will be different. Everyone will marry off back into their halls groups - or now rather their house groups - and I'll be feeling like an outsider once again. Still, like I said, I'm strangely optimistic. Maybe there'll be a lonely fresher in the same position as I was last year, looking for a new BFF as some of her friends at home appear to have forgotten her. Or maybe there'll be a creepy couple just like Liam and I there who aren't approached by anyone when they're together. That'll be fun. Still, one can only hope.

I'd quite like to go to some of the Freshers' events this year, because as mentioned in a previous blog, we only went to 3 of them last year. Although money probably won't allow it. Looking back I should have just gotten myself twatted at Freshers, then maybe I would have had the confidence to go and talk to people. Or puke on them. Or divulge information that I wouldn't dare bring up when sober.

I've been told several times that the second year is no doubt the hardest year. Interesting. I should keep a running total of things I did last year that I do this year - such as:

1. Threaten to quit
2. Bitch and moan that I'm having to do group work
3. Scream that statistics is the biggest load of bullshit I've ever had the misfortune to work on
4. Get upset that an essay grade nowhere near reflects the work I've put in
5. Say that the entire place is a shithole because of one or more of the items in this list
6. Cry that I'm lonely and have no friends
7. Get stroppy over having to get up early
8. Moan about buses being late/packed
9. Procrastinate working on an assessment because refreshing the Facebook newsfeed is much more interesting
10. Count the number of hours I'll sleep based on what time I go to bed
11. Tweet/state that I'm paying 6 grand a year to be unhappy
12. Tweet/state that this is the dullest lecture I've ever been in and that "I'm so bored my face could fall off"

This year I'm expecting to add "Bitch and moan at the fact I don't get to leave until 6pm" to that list now I've seen my timetable, and also "Moan that I have nothing to do in my 2 hour gap between lectures." Still, I'm pleased that I have Mondays off, and also the fact that despite a 9am start on Fridays, I'm finished by 10am, meaning a constant early, and long weekend.

Maybe it's just the boredom kicking in (although it's done that more than once this summer) or maybe I am genuinely excited to go back to uni. Still, I'm sure it won't be long before "University Misery Bingo" starts up again.

Knee Deep in Clunge: My Top 10 Inbetweeners Moments

So tonight sees the airing of The Inbetweeners Top 10 Moments on E4, and later this week the release of the long anticipated movie. Unfortunately, I won't be watching the movie until I get the all-clear (or at least a description of the scene) of any vomit related incidents so I can decide whether to go to the cinema or wait for the DVD release, and I hope I can do the former.

You'd think an emetophobe like myself would be one to stay away from The Inbetweeners, and that was my first impression too. Unfortunately, a delivery shift at work one night involved my colleagues watching the Series 1 DVD while waiting for the delivery to arrive, and the beginning of the episode showed a brief clip of the infamous 'Simon-throws-up-on-Carli's-brother' scene. I would have boycotted the episode had I not been in the presence of people I was still trying to make a good impression on, however I didn't want to seem like a pussy, so I stayed and watched, and to my surprise, I really enjoyed it.

I went home, and the next day began watching the first series, and although I had to mute and look away a few times on the scene mentioned above, the beginning of each episode of that series played that clip a hell of a lot, and so with that, and some structured desensitisation by watching that clip on YouTube, I became immune to that scene. Even to the extent where I found it funny. Unfortunately, I haven't become immune to the tent scene in Series 3 as of yet, because I can't work miracles, but it still hasn't stopped me from enjoying each episode (apart from the tent scene).

So, no one knows until 11 this evening what the top ten moments are, so as a bit of fun (mainly for myself as I have nothing better to do while I wait for my dinner), I've put together my top ten Inbetweeners moments.

10. Series 3 - Episode 3 - Will's Dillema - "Waterside" - Jay and Neil spot Mr Gilbert admring fluffy toys, and the next day tease him about it by saying "waterside" around him. Leading to them getting detention.

9. Series 2 - Episode 1 - The Field Trip - Jay looks for his 'seaside MILF' - The awkward moment where Jay thinks the ice-cream lady is the "yummy mummy who wants me to spunk on her tummy" and awkwardly asks her "can you suck me off?"

8. Series 1 - Episode 2 - Bunk Off - "Bumder" - Will gets drunk and ends up calling Neil's dad a 'bumder' - a mixture of 'bummer' and 'bender.'

7. Series 2 - Episode 4 - Night Out in London - "Bus Wankers" - After successfully yelling "bus wankers" at people, Jay tries it again in London, but it backfires.

6. Series 2 - Episode 1 - The Field Trip - Punching a Fish - After Simon falls into the water, things go from bad to worse when they catch a fish - and Neil decides the most humane way to kill it - punching it to death.

5. Series 3 - Episode 4 - Trip to Warwick - "Tactical Wank" Gone Wrong - After Simon fails to get an erection after taking Jay's advice to have a 'tactical wank,' he ends up getting angry. Really angry.

4. Series 2 - Episode 5 - Duke of Edinburgh Awards - Jay Gets Caught - Jay goes into a room he thinks is empty for a 'quick tug' but ends up getting caught by an old lady in there. And then by Daisy and the old woman's son.

3. Series 1 - Episode 3 - Thorpe Park - "Inconsiderate Assholes!" - Will kicks off when people are already sat at the front of Nemesis Inferno calling them "inconsiderate assholes" - but it turns out they're from the Happy Foundation, a charity for people with Down Syndrome.

2. Series 2 - Episode 2 - Work Experience - Simon Gets Lucky - Simon meets Hannah, who suddenly starts to give him a handjob in the middle of an under 18s disco while Jay, Neil and Will watch. As Jay puts it "well, thanks to me, we're now watching Simon get wanked off."

1. Series 3 - Episode 1 - The Fashion Show - Wardrobe Malfunction - While hurrying to put on a revealing costume to help Carli, and worrying about getting an erection, Simon suffers an embarassing wardrobe malfunction, which he isn't even aware of...

My number one moment was the one I voted for in the poll that E4 ran, although personally, I think the top moment will most likely be "Bus wankers." Some of my favourite moments didn't actually make it into the poll, I think the way they should have done it was have everyone submit their favourite moment without having to choose from a list, and then drawing a shortlist from that, then perhaps doing a vote. Still, there were some pretty good ones in their poll.

Making a paddling pool look deep: Why magazines make women look shallow.

I read a lot of magazines. Mainly because I have no friends here currently and also no job as no one wants to employ me. But also, simply because I like it. I like the features more than anything as opposed to the celebrity crap and the fashion and beauty pages, but what annoys me, is that women's magazines seem to go out of their depths to make us seem unbelievably shallow.

I'm not going to name names here, as most womens magazines do it, so I'll just mention them collectively. Aside from a couple of features in monthly/weekly issues depending on the magazine, they seem to talk about nothing but fashion, beauty and celebrities. It makes it sound like it's all we care about, whereas frankly, I couldn't care less.

I mean, I couldn't give a shit what looks hot on the catwalks right now, most of which they only advertise stuff in shops that I could never afford to shop in on a student budget. I don't care if the top is a replica of something hot of the catwalk, I refuse to pay £25 for a TOP. Obviously, I like to look nice and wear nice clothes, but at the end of the day, I like living in my flat and eating. Something which has priority over looking nice I'd think.

Beauty tips aren't that bad, because some of them are helpful at times, some of which I've read and have thought they were genius ideas and have used them every single day afterwards, but as far as the make up they talk about, who in their right mind would pay anything over a fiver for a mascara? It's your eyelashes for crying out loud. Something which people are rarely going to see up close, unless you gaze into your boyfriend's eyes a lot or something, but even so, most guys probably don't care what your eyelashes look like.

I buy make up, and I wear it every day, but I refuse to pay anything over a tenner for the lot. Call me cheap if you must, but I just don't see the point. Cheaper brands like Miss Sporty still do the job, although I draw the line at using make up out of cheap gift sets and from places like Poundland.

What's probably the worst in these magazines is the celebrity news though. By all means have it, but don't fill up half of your magazine with it. I don't know who actually physically worries themselves over what Taylor Swift wore at the Teen Choice awards, or how stressful Kim Kardashian's wedding plans are (on a side note, surely with all the money she has she can afford a wedding planner to do it all for her?). Yeah people might be interested, but I wouldn't have thought anything like that is an OMG! moment, especially not with the stuff going on in this country right now.

I'm not going to say I completely boycott the celeb news, because I don't. If it's a celebrity I'm interested in, I will read whatever feature it is, but thankfully, most of the celebs I'm interested in are stars of Desperate Housewives and The Big Bang Theory, and in this country, you don't always get a lot of news about them unless you purposely look for it, which I don't have the time to do (although you'd think I would, not having a job or anything). A few members of the Glee cast are in magazines now and again, and I'll gladly read that, as I'm a massive Gleek, but I'm saying if it wasn't there, I wouldn't be bothered and I wouldn't be frantically Googling them to find out what's going on with them right now, as there's more important things to worry about.

Some features in magazines I have found useful, and I'm not going to lie, if I find something in a magazine that interests me or I find useful or I just enjoy reading, I cut it out and keep it to refer back to. That probably makes me sound shallow in itself, but it's things like money saving tips, recipes, tips on how to be more confident etc, and I do read things and think "ooh, must try that."

I just hate the idea that all magazines seem to think that the only thing women worry about are clothes, make up, hair and celebrities, because I'm sure 90% at least of the female population in this country don't prioritise any of those. I know I don't. I worry about how much money's in my bank account, whether I'll ever find a job, whether I'll make some more stable friends at uni this year, my relationships, my family, my health, what's going on in the world etc, and I'm sure that's the same with most women.

Still despite these annoyances, I'll keep on reading magazines for the appealing features.

Finally, on a brief note, I can't blog at this time without mentioning the current riots going on.
What scares me the most is the fact these people obviously know what damage they're doing to people's lives and homes, but they're still willing to cause all this disruption, and now the first fatality has been confirmed. How many people are going to have to be killed in order for them to realise that enough is enough? Those doing it are just scum and deserve whatever punishment's coming to them. If they want to fight they should get their scummy shit faced asses to Afghanistan, where real men who have families and are risking their lives are fighting a war, unlike the disgusting wastes of space that are tearing up their own cities for virtually no reason. Thoughts are with everyone affected and hoping that all this nastiness ends soon. x

Facebook: The annoying social network that we all love to be annoyed by...

We all love Facebook right? Most people would certainly be lost without it, and don't get me wrong, it's great for keeping in touch with old friends from school and family members. But God, it's annoying. In a way, it's not Facebook's fault for being annoying, it's the people on it. Hell, most of my annoyances come from people doing stuff that pisses me off on Facebook.

First off, being able to 'like' people's statuses is annoying in it's own right. Okay, so you can agree with what people say without actually writing anything, or you can show your support by 'liking' someone's status after they've gotten a new job or whatever, but what gets me is when people 'like' stuff just to be annoying. If you post a negative status for example, (something which I do all too often being a pessemist and what not) you'll occassionally get the odd dickhead who 'likes' it. Not because they revel in your misery (or they might, depending on who it is), but because they're just dicks who like to be annoying.

Occasionally people will 'like' at the wrong time - namely when you post something like this: "RIP *insert name here* You will be sorely missed :( x x x" It can seem highly inappropriate to 'like' a status like this, but yet people do it to be supportive because they don't always know what to write. Still, even saying that, depending on who the person is, namely, someone you don't talk to often or even like that much, you'll probably see it as them 'liking' the fact that a loved one has died. Although if it's a close friend, then probably you'll know they're being supportive. But a close friend would most likely have something to say. Tricky.

That's the thing about Facebook. It's almost always ambiguous. Which leads me to my next point. Ambiguous statues that may or may not be about you, one of the worst things about Facebook and I reckon probably a large contributor to cyber-bullying, or at least upsetting people. Occasionally they can be nice such as "*Name* has just had the most wonderful day with someone really special ;)" or they can be terribly bitchy: "*Name* thinks that some people are total assholes and need to mind their own business."

I'm not going to lie, I've done statuses like this before, not to be bitchy, but in all honesty because I am a chicken and would rather post something like that than say it to someone's face and risk the consequences of a face to face argument. And I think most people are like that. We've all done it, yet we all complain about it. We've probably all seen a status like this: "*Name* thinks that some people are pussies and that some people should say stuff to my face!" I remember that in A-level psychology, we studied aggression and there's a sense of power that people feel when they're in front of a keyboard, they're a lot more willing to say things because there's less risk of getting their face kicked in.

A massive bugaboo of mine about Facebook is the constant friendship PDAs. Yes, we all know that you're super-amazing-awesome-BFFs, but you don't have to constantly remind the world about it. I'm talking about albums full of the same 'cam-whore-style-taken-with-a-phone-camera' pictures of the two of you and the wall postings that come up and spam your homepage and the statuses where you tag one another. By all means, now and again is fine, there's nothing wrong with it, and you obviously can't stop what people post on Facebook (unless you block them from your news feed, but there's something about being nosy that makes you want to keep them unblocked), but just don't overdo it. I'll emphasise that there's nothing wrong with showing how much you love your BFF on Facebook, but when you have an album full of pics of the two of you in the same position, I think it's time to cut back on the PDAs. Surely it's better to text your friend how much you love them and what a great time you had with them today rather than show it off to the world and his cat? Whatever happened to the privacy of texting?

Pages you can 'like' are also one of the other many annoying things about Facebook. By all means, I love a funny page as much as the next person (the "Like if you remember this *insert obsence comment describing an innocent cartoon character you loved in your childhood* crack me up and I've ended up with about 20 to my name) but when they start spamming your homepage with random links, it gets a bit annoying. They also go back with the thing about ambiguous statuses too, because there's some saying things like "That status was about me, say it to my face next time" or whatever (I have liked those before, but in my defence, I was upset and pissed off..). In short, there's probably a page for everything. Forget "there's an app for that" it's more likely "there's a Facebook page for that."

Family on Facebook is another thing to be weary of. I don't need to worry too much as I was brought up in a house full of swearing (which, I might add, there's nothing wrong with!) so my folks are used to seeing a potty-mouthed status or whatever, but a lot of people have to be careful. To be honest there is the option of putting your family members into one group (including friends of the family and your friend's parents, just to be safe) and blocking posts from that group, so it's not a totally unavoidable thing. And there's also the option to hide things you've been tagged in, lucky, because your mum probably doesn't want to see you face down in your own vomit with a cock drawn on your head on that night out does she? For that matter, neither do any of your colleagues or old teachers if you have them as friends!

That leads me onto my next point, being tagged in inappropriate photos is a definite thing to be annoyed about. I was recently told that most employers Google your name when they read your job application, so you have to go through all the trouble of making sure you're not tagged in any compromising photos or posts. Hence why it's important to set your profile to private.

Finally, there's the whole being friends with people you don't really want to be friends with thing. I have over 100 friends on my Facebook, some are people I've met online through forums and some are people from school, some are old friends and some are family. Most of the people on there, I am happy to call my friends, but some, I don't even know why they're on my friends list because in real life, I've been shat on (not literally, might I add) and upset by them so many times. To be honest, if there's someone you know who you wouldn't say hi to in the street, then there's not really any reason to have them on Facebook.

Of course there's the option of just ignoring their friend request if they add you, and deleting them if you already have them, but they'll add you again at the end of the day, because you do get the odd kind of person who is obsessed by numbers rather than actual friends. In short they wouldn't cross the street to spit on you, but they've still added you because they want to have more friends on their list than anyone else.

Still, I'm happy to have some old accquaintances on Facebook, it's good to keep in touch and occasionally you get the odd person start a conversation with you asking what you've been up to.

So there's lots of stuff that annoys more than likely everyone about Facebook, but in spite of that, loads of people probably can't live without it. Honestly, I know I couldn't, I'm sad enough to check it regularly, I don't even know why, perhaps I don't have a life and I need to get some friends while I'm in Northampton, perhaps I'm just nosy, whatever, but I'm sure that's the case for most people. At the end of the day I like that I can keep in touch with my friends from school and members of my family I don't see or speak to often while I'm at uni, and I know even if Facebook didn't exist there'd still be the option of texting them or whatever, but the fact Facebook's there just sort of makes it easier.

So I suppose at the end of the day, Facebook's good for that sort of thing, provided that you can put up with the minor annoyances it brings.