UCAS and such

Getting into university is stressful at the best of times, this year it is more competitive than it has ever been and probably will be for the next 10 years. With fees going up, everyone who has been considering it for a few years has applied, noone with an iota of common sense is considering taking a gap year and university funding has dropped so less places are available. Great.

We all get the pleasure of applying through the middleman that is UCAS, I can't be bothered to look up what it stands for, if you want to know I recommend Googling it. For a middleman UCAS are great and receive an awful lot of abuse. Some is deserved, some is not. For example, for our personal statements you are allowed 4000 characters and 47 lines. Seems fair, 47 is a slightly strange number but alright. How is it that a statement can be way under the character limit but go over the line limit. There is nothing more frustrating than finally finishing the personal statement, proof reading, and finalising before uploading it to see that stupid bit of red writing that says "2 lines over the 47 line limit." AHHHHHHHHHH, *throw computer through window* bloody UCAS! I sorted that though.

The worst part is the agonising waiting process, first the 3 weeks for my form tutor to write my reference, the quick 2 days for the Head of Sixth Form to process and then the hard part, waiting for offers. I went through the first week telling myself it was too early for a decision but the second week was less pleasant. With every email my pulse raced, could it be an offer? Nope, another email about volunteering/amazon recommends/teamsheet, oh well. What was even more horrible was when I did get an email from UCAS, nervously I opened it to find "Would you like to take part in a survey to rate UCAS?" How disappointing, I can't face a survey right now, I'll just stare at this wall contemplating my university-free failure of a life. We all talked about timings and teachers recalled cases of excellent students having no offers until suddenly getting five in January. After nearly two weeks I had set myself for this horrible future, despite the fact that offers in the first two weeks is very unlikely.

After a hilarious shift at work, much racing and Bond-style fighting with my colleague (friend) I got home to find two emails from UCAS. Both said "Your UCAS status has changed." Cue quick pulse, sharp breaths and excited quivers. Being on my ipod touch I quickly went onto my UCAS app, oh yes, and logged in (knowing my 10-digit code off by heart of course) to find an offer of ABB from Cardiff. Not only this but an offer of ABB from my favourite, and top choice Nottingham. What a day. Conditional is such a beautiful word. If I ever see the word Unconditional on my application I will drop out of school and work full time, think of the money! So I am happy, sorry for the lack of moaning and paintball action. See you next time.

Jumping on the paintball bandwagon

Paintball seems to be an excellent blogging topic, two of my friends have given their comments on the spectacle already (mylifeisdaverage.blogspot.com and strevssundays.blogspot.com) and have probably done a better job than I will do. Until now I have refused to mention names other than my own in this blog but for ease of writing and reading I will just bite the paintball, pardon the pun, and use the names of my friends. We embarked on a trip to Whyteleafe in a jovial mood, we were going to be shooting people in a fun yet painful way, the ultimate lads day out. There was quite a walk from the station, up a massive hill, and after such an early start, this was not the ideal start for such frail teenage bodies on such a crisp and damp Saturday morning. The hill conquered we were well and truly in the mood for war.

I'm going to quickly open the racist door, gathered outside the "warzone" was a group of 15 or so Japanese people, cue paint-related Hiroshima jokes. All these jokes were trumped by the suggestion of Adam Russell: "you know how in war soldiers carry a knife for killing up close? Do you reckon in paintball you could carry a paintbrush?" With all of us kitted up it came to the point of being put into teams. Unable to fairly split ourselves we left it up to the highly fair and intelligent minds of the paintball marshals. Shockingly they didn't split us as evenly as we'd hoped. One one team they put Paul "Psycho with a face mask" Wallace, Ally "the destroyer" Marsh, Tom "In homeland we use real guns" Diver and David "I can't wait to shoot Dave" Streather and on the other team was me, Dave "COD" Williams and Adam "hallo" Russell. It did not look hopeful.

After a safety briefing we went to war, given a quick insight into course strategy we gave our battle-cry, it was quite pathetic really, far too many grammar schoolboys, midlife crisis men and hungover stag-doers for an inspiring rally. Seeing myself as superior in the speed department to my comrades I took it upon myself to sprint off to the vantage point in the form of a massive tree. I made it safely and proceeded to coordinate an attack with total strangers. It did not go well. I do not have the tactical mind needed to orchestrate successful military operations.

Several games later my lack of tactical knowledge combined with the intricate workings of Dave William's battle-ready brain. Having realised he did not have the body to match his mind, and my mind not living up to my body we teamed up. At first it was not successful, a collection of fluke shots took me out in our first two attempts at teamwork, leaving Dave to fend for himself (something he did shockingly well at) but our finest hour came in the final game. Capture the flag, sounds simple enough. But wait, the flag is situated just outside a heavily defended fortress, full of testosterone-fuelled alpha males, this would take an expert military mind and a body of military perfection. Step forward Dave and Joe. In the valuable seconds before hell was unleashed he planned our safest and quickest route to the flag. The plan fresh in my mind I burst from cover on the starting whistle and dived behind his barricade of choice. Under my covering fire, Dave made his run and landed alongside me. This was repeated another two times, leaving us just metres away from the flag, victory was in sight but alas fate is a cruel mistress. As Dave threw himself towards the final barricade in true commando style, as he landed he threw up his arm for a fraction of a second to steady himself and screamed in pain. Thinking he had landed awkwardly I said "Nice one Dave, great work". He stared into my eyes, or at least near them, our masks had fogged up, before revealing his paint splattered hand. He was hit, my comrade, my team-mate but most of all, my friend had fallen in our final battle, I was devastated, I wasn't sure if I could go on. I could hear his voice in my head, urging me on "Go on Joe, forget about me, you have to capture the flag!" In a fit of blind rage I broke from cover and grabbed the flag, with a final rush of adrenaline I sprinted back to base, flag in hand, eyes streaming with the thought of my loss. Back to base I let out a victory cry, a lion would have cowarded in fear at my show of masculinity. That was for you Dave, that was for you.

Dear Liver, fire up the hepatocytes, I'm legal!

You may not have heard from or seen me in the last week, there is a valid explanation. I turned 18 last Monday you see, my time and money has been frittering away in various public houses in the local area and a lot of time wasted recovering.

I have done a lot with my week, Monday saw an assessed A-level Chemistry practical based around activation energy and the Arrhenius equation, quite the birthday present, thanks Chemistry department. I got 12 out of 14 though, not a complete waste of birthday. That out of the way meant pub time so off I went with two close friends for my first legal pint. Got home to pizza and then to the pub with my dad and his friends. I was served by the most miserable pig I've ever seen who looked like she would rather we had walked past the door, foolish considering we made up more than half the custom that night...cow.

The week could quite easily have been described as gig-tastic, Wednesday saw me take a trip to Camden to see the Mystery Jets at the Roundhouse, it was honestly my favourite thing ever, well done to my girlfriend for buying me tickets to it. Sadly she could not attend, had to make a fool of herself on a stage in front of her whole year and their parents instead. I somehow ended up right at the front with a small friend of mine and as an 18-year old male felt particularly responsible for supporting crowd surfers and such.

The next day brought a foals gig, I knew it would never live up to the night before but also knew my girlfriend loves them. In an effort to make the night more enjoyable and to keep my jealous alter-ego down I spent the majority of the afternoon in he pub drinking and drinking, including a drink ironically named "Green-Eyed Monster". A lot of money went that day, didn't eat dinner either so it had the desired affect. I had to meet my best mate in Herne Hill, a place I have never been, on a train I've never been on and in a delirious state, it was destined for disaster. I defied logic and made it alive, he then got me to Brixton. Is it a good idea to dance to street music in Brixton? Obviously not but apparently drunk Joe thinks that would be an excellent plan, so I did. I ran up steps, fell down steps, sang, danced and all while my friend grew more and more ashamed of me. The gig did not start well, about 20 seconds into the first song I got a killer cramp in my hamstring. Best friend was in a fit of hysterics, girlfriend didn't even notice. I'm glad I surround myself with such caring people. In their defence, Foals performed an average catalogue of music fairly well and I quite like it, the fastest song Cassius was awesome, the slow songs were a bit dull but I was having a party in my own head and nothing could stop me.

My journey home was not good, getting separated from my friends, an encounter with a scumbag local at the station and a killer stomach ache all the way home but it could have been worse. I survived my trip to Brixton.

I'm not going to mention my party because I can't remember a lot of it but strevssunday.blogspot.com sums it up fairly well. I remember a mankini, a hat, and my pathetic attempt at giving an impromptu speech. I was given a mug which I opened the next day. It was from my cousin's girlfriend and it is quite possibly the best mug in the entire world, it is covered in useful information. Have you got a mug that tells you that Pi = 3.14159265, the speed of sound is 343m/s, the NATO phonetic alphabet, how to spell unnecessary and about everything under the sun? No you don't.

One quick moan: why are we all ignorant enough to believe that Christmas is here because a massive corporate business has told us so. An advert does not mean Christmas has arrived. This is exactly the way Christmas has moved away from a religious festival to a day about gifts. Bloody Coca Cola.

*hepatocytes - liver cells responsible for breaking down toxins eg. alcohol

X-factor revealed

Dear all, I am sorry for my long absence but nothing got me sufficiently riled up to put my mountains of work to one side to write something. This was until last night, I was at my cousin's birthday, she was 8 or 9ish I think, and whilst eating dinner (a particularly delicious jambalaya) the decision was made that the X factor should be put on. I was not in favour of this, I much preferred the socialising of the family event, talking to other people is enjoyable...sometimes.

To be fair, as the show was starting they mentioned that Bon Jovi would be performing, maybe this won't be so bad after all, so were Jamiroquai and Rihanna but I was too excited about Bon Jovi to care. Show starts, Bon Jovi perform, the whole room sings along, it was beautiful, Bon Jovi are amazing. Then the contestants came out and sang along. Piss off! I don't want the musical legends that are Bon Jovi drowned out by the screeches from these wanabees. Frankly it ruined it for me.

It was about half way through the program that a thought occurred to me: X-factor represents almost everything that is wrong with this country. The only way it could be everything was if it somehow got us to purchase things we can't afford with the promise of not having to pay for 18 months.

Firstly, it reinforces the view in our minds that being famous is more important than anything else. Being raised on celebrities is to blame for the casual-sex and binge-alcohol culture of teenagers, anorexia and bolemia, views on personal appearance and poor values in relationships.

Secondly, it gives the impression that you only get one shot to make your life count. Life is all about progress and adapting, working hard to get further and further in career, love, family and knowledge. You are not a failure if you get voted off a talent show. You are just a loser.

Furthermore, it represents laziness, the music industry is hard work, dog eat dog and requires years of hard work and patience before a big break, the x-factor is just a fast track into the music industry, no performing in small venues, noone letting you down, no bad reviews, no songwriting, the company just do everything for you.

It has taken away our sense of perspective. Simon Cowell has somehow managed to make half the nation think that what happens on his show is the most important thing in the world. "What bomb scares, which dead soldiers abroad, what political scandal? I'm too depressed to care, Belle Amie went out!" It is pathetic that more people voted in the x-factor semi-final in 2007 than in the last general election. People die fighting for the right to vote, and we don't even bother doing so? It seems far more sensible to spend 25p on a vote that won't affect your life at all than to vote for free to decide the future of the country. The television talent show is dying and I will dance on its grave.

On a further note I don't often find myself cheering on poisonous animals but apparently Jedward are in "I'm a Celebrity, Get me out of here!" this year so go Red Back Spider, go Tiger Snake, go go go!!!