Five, Four, Three, II.1, Thunderbirds Are Go

Well, I'm back home. Fact. Finished with university life. Another fact. I finished with a II.1 for anyone who doesn't know by now by the way. Third fact.

Um, yeah. Feel somewhat strange to be finished really. That's it.

Immense Link

Please read the following short site, describing a player of various football simulation computer games, who sends in a job application to manage Premiership Middlesbrough based on his virtual manager credentials. And then recieves an absolutely brilliant reply.

A gamer applies for the Middlesbrough job.

Awesome.

Kurwa Polska

For those of you whose Polish isn't up to scratch, that's me cursing at Poland. There is a reason for this, as you will now be told the tale.

At the college bar on Sunday (& Monday) there was a mightily inspired World Cup tournament of PES. Which is immense - it's hard to explain how mighty playing PES on a 42" plasma screen is, but it's damn amazing. It's also entertaining to watch an entire bar cheering, ooohing and ahhing over a computer game. It was great fun.

The groups were formed as in the real world cup, with appropriate substitutions when there was a team that wasn't on the game, and everyone was drawn a team at random. And knowing my luck, I got Poland. I thought this was a fairly average pick - a medium-level side - in a reasonable group. However, they're a lot worse than I thought.

With five minute games, and my typical inability to score, I struggled to a 0-0 game against a rampant Costa Rica. Having gone back to my room and checked out the Polish squad, I came back with a new lineup and new formation for the game against Germany, and completely dominated another 0-0 draw and was unlucky not to win.

In my last game, I needed to beat Ecuador to progress. My typical inability to score kicked in again, and changing my formation after 60 minutes to go for a more aggressive playstyle led to my downfall as my two man defense conceded a goal in the 90th minute to put me out with no goals from three games.

The eventual tournament was won by Brazil, beating Sweden 1-0 in the final. The shock of the tournament was Tunisia, who qualified ahead of Spain and then beat Argentina on penalties. Poland finished bottom of their group and went home with their tails between their legs. However, after looking at their squad later in the day, I discovered that Poland were actually the second worst team in the competition, according to PES, better than only Saudi Arabia. Even Iran were better than them. So, bugger.

But it was still great fun.

Half-Century

Amazingly enough, this is my fiftieth ever post in my blog. I'm amazed I've had that much to say, I really don't think I have. It really proves how little effort is required to actually make a blog post; witness this, for example, which has already grown to a virtual paragraph without containing any content.

In other news, it's a week and a half left at Uni. I've got a few things planned - I need to sort out Congregation finally next week - but I also have a poker night on Thursday which sounds good, and there's a Pro Evo tournament on Sunday in Mildert bar, which is definately going to be something I will be participating in. Although it requires me to get up at eleven, but it's worth it. I'll need to get my skills in practice for that though, I haven't played properly for a good while.

Apart from that, nothing to report. I've seen 12/16 World Cup games all the way through so far, and seen most of the other four. Only another 46 to go. I'll see if I can get a look at all of them.

Update!

Well, I've finished. No more essays, exams, work, anything of that sort of nature. I've also apparantly finished with the concept of posts on my blog. I think I'll add one now.

Most interesting thing I've done recently is the ultimate frisbee tournament that I took part in; featuring some amazing dives to take the frisbee in the end-zone twice, and also getting very sunburnt due to the shock of being outside in the fresh air. I'm also trying to talk people into doing the five-a-side tag rugby tournament but noone seems that interested, an apathetic approach if you ask me.

Welcome to the Exam Season

You can tell it's examtime and people are stressed because pretty much everyone you talk to has the grace, manners and general pleasantness of a broody gorilla who you just pushed in front of in the checkout queue at a supermarket with a basket containing 100 items, none of which have the bar codes on them and must be searched around the store for the prices.

A long metaphor, but you get the point.

Thoughts

I've tried three times to put down what I think onto the metaphorical paper that is here, and no time has been satisfactory. So I will be brief and attempt in doing so to avoid this.

Life is complicated. We always think everyone else's lives seem to be working fine, without knowing any of their inner workings. We pass someone in the street, chatting happily, and think that everything must be perfect for them. We look at ourselves and see only faults, look at others and see only their good characteristics. Everyone has a mask, to some extent, behind which their true feelings are hidden. To some that mask is obvious. To others it isn't even perceptible.

So many small things can contribute to make a big thing. Big things can feed off each other, making everything seem worse than it is. How to stop this cycle? If I was to know that, then I'd be a lot more help to others and to myself. How to control it? To keep everything in perspective. To remember how each of the big things is in fact a small thing that has been enlarged by your worries. That the huge things are big things in a similar form. We fear of doing things that appear incorrect, of making mistakes, of appearing stupid or selfconcious.

Is there even such a thing as self-control? What is it that it means; someone who can control themselves? Or learn to understand themselves, where they appear in control because that which bothers everyone else doesn't bother them. To know what is big and what is small. And act appropriately. This is easier said than done. But it must be possible.

Lights, Ponder ... Action!

And we're under way with revision. Of sorts. At least, we're theoretically under way. And that's almost as good.

Four exams to do. Lots of preparation to do. This year I am being much more diligent, i.e. I am preparing much more in advance of the day of judgement itself. Time to start getting an idea of everything that's going on. It tends to help.

In other news: Royal Mail suck, Sven Goran Erikson is an idiot, ironing is boring and Scooby Doo is pure genius in dog form.