The post–war month

It has been a month since I stopped being a student. It has been two months since I did serious work. It has been a year since anyone heard from Marcel Hkusfor. WHAT IS MY EXCUSE? Nay I’m all out of ammo. Since the horrible visit from Mom (like a Robots remake), I have decided I shall try to look for work now. Me, the proverbial antihero with my shiny spectacles, shoes filled with sand and a head full of Godzilla omakes. Yeah right, I’m going to find a employer who wants my 2:1 in Stats. I hear laughter.

: 31 Jul 2007 15:09 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

What is the matter with Q?

Wonderboy and I just spent 4 hours in the SPLUS computer room. We’ve gotten all the available Q matricies but don’t really know what to say about them. Generally, we feel poorly informed about Q and I gave up and left at 1:30 a.m. Tomorrow we fight again… against Applied Stochastic Processes. Really I don’t see the point. I fail whether I study or not anyway. Why am I at university? I’m so unqualified to be a student.

: 21 Nov 2006 02:35 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

This must be a Wiki

It is definitely better to do one’s assignment with somebody more animate than a semi-recommended textbook. Hai… all his notations are recycled… have no idea what the lecturer is thinking… But with the help of a someone I have never spoken to in two years, my level of confusion with regards to the notes up to November 3rd is now just 37.3%. And my accomplice-base has broadened by one member. As momma would have said, “That nigga be gang-sta as fuck, yo.”

: 20 Nov 2006 00:23 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Because I got High

This is for my IB217 project. I will be a hypothetical class C drug dealer on, for some hypothetical reason, the brink of bankruptcy. To dignify myself as a 21st century homo sapien, I will open a cigar bar on Broad Street and intoxicate every undignified person who walks in with my pure evil airborne toxins. Eventually, I will be able to maintain a consistent air quality of 95% tobacco smoke, 4% anonymous gases including oxygen and 1% fart (to serve as a diversion when authorities conduct searches). My primary business shall be in Cuban cigars, but I will also operate a bar, hang banners for Jayday March and Festival 2006 and will bring in a jukebox that features bands with one or more members who have died from smoking weed. Taking into account a personal oxygen gas mask, rent, cigar imports, alcohol purchases, various licences, labour costs, general maintenance, bills, fines and/or bail, I hope to avoid economic failure and have as much fun as possible before smoking gets banned in all enclosed public spaces across England from the summer of 2007. Got a light mate?

: 31 Mar 2006 16:30 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Excuse me, you're in my way.

Dear Miss L.,

I checked your wardrobe this morning – I couldn't find it. Why are you still living out of your suitcase? I wanted to make you a sandwich but your fridge is bare and your freezer has a 5 kg bag of Bernard Matthews Turkey Breasts. You have been going to uni for 5 days a week but you never arrange your files. I haven't been able to ring you lately because your phone has run out of battery. Don't you have any credit? Don't you want to ring anyone? I know that your face smashed against a fire door last term. How many weeks more do you want to wait before you get some new spectacles? Your carpet has some suspicious stains. Where did you get this pearl necklace? When did you lose your glove? Why don't you ever carry an umbrella? How often do you wash your hair? Drink more water. Buy a straw hat. Wear a dress in summer. Eat 5 servings of fruit & veg. Scuba dive. Cook. Have a better photo of youyself. Get more piercings. Skinny dip. Go on road trip with no predetermined destination. Write poetry. Publish poetry. Give blood. Fly. Grow taller. Be seen on TV. Be remembered. Karaoke. Buy stock. Tread water. Play chess. Start a magazine. Juggle. Grow vegetables from seed. Become a Power Ranger. Learn to fight. Learn to whistle. Design a t-shirt. Dye your hair a wierd colour. Ride a motorcycle. Improve your handwriting. Be a movie extra. Live outside of your head.

Good luck

Your Body.

: 29 Mar 2006 18:26 |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Enclosed Counters

Those who dream of taking charge
run blindly down the fold
but never hear the wise man's words
to fly in search of old.

(Mar '96)

: 09 Mar 2006 13:35 |  Tags: Marcel Hkusfor |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

TRUTH!

At long last it is the end of the term and the start of the X'mas break! Over these 10 weeks I have collected evidence on the following crime:

I don't study because I –

1. spend 4 hours each day commited to commute between study locations
2. spend the odd hour on some days commited to commute between study and non-study locations
3. have neighbours coming over to throw impromtu Legalize Cannibis socials
4. need to amass £4.85-an-hour hours over every weekend
5. shiver too much from the cold
6. ritualistically inspect Tesco shelves for <£0.50 biscuits
7. require literary supplement from The Grocer, The Economist and The Science of Discworld
8. attend self-improvement classes to feel awful about myself
9. sudoku (but not religiously anymore!)

I also have data on my spending habits:
1. £4X on food and drink (and biscuits)
2. £4XX on non-food-and-drink items (of which £2XX is on transport, of which £174 is on a travel pass I lost in week 7)

But I have earned just enough to leave me cleanly debt free…! (...sans the four figure sum Mom calmly paid the uni in tuition fees on my behalf)

Furthermore, I survived the term without:
1. touching my laptop (this still makes me laugh)
2. eating more than a meal per day (henceforth may biscuits be praised!!)
3. buying textbooks
4. tips from working over the summer of '05
5. CDs and mp3s
6. watching anime
7. worshiping/preaching the temple of Cloud Strife
8. £174 travel pass (only from week 7)
9. touching my digital camera
10. touching my graphing calculator
11. my scientific calculator (only from week 8)
12. my kickass pencil sharpener (it broke before the term started)

Things I regret over the weeks:
1. I wasn't studious on the train
2. neglecting physical exercise
3. neglecting my c.v.
4. speaking little to uni friends
5. having to use the rubbish pencil sharpener in the library
6. losing my tips
7. losing my travel pass (I must have said this three times now)
8. losing my scientific calculator (this should not have happened!!!)
9. self-brought addiction to biscuits

Hence my Spring Term resolution is to:
1. study on the train
2. study in uni every Mon to Fri for at least 4 hours a day
3. engage in after-dinner-revision
3. hoard money (and my travel pass!!)
4. eat less biscuits (...to a certain reasonable extent!)

: 01 Dec 2005 13:55 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

I'm not a Crybaby

So far I have cried three times over work complications; the first was because of Deborah Hayes, the second was because of Rob Moore, and the latest 'tear wave' fell yesterday. Yes, Jean was being sufficiently nasty to me and I just couldn't take it anymore and snapped just 2 minutes before my shift was over. What surprised me the most was how everyone came rushing to give me a hug and a kiss (just a peck from assistant manager Rob Hood) immediately after. (Yea! We're united against the bosses!) But who really calmed me down was actually Precious' mum. Precious' mum is so cool; she makes me laugh. And so yes Mrs. Waite, I will stick with the GM despite all this nonsense. I will stay on and show Jean she can't intimidate me this way >_<

: 31 Oct 2005 20:06 |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Drifting Away

I suddenly find that I have been doing everything in my power to aviod uni and just about everything about it. I skip most socials, I do lunch solo, I go home straight after class.

I remember a time when I said hello to people on my course whom I studied with previously. After getting blank looks for awhile, I displayed my own blank face when I'm on screensaver mode too. People are strange, when you're a stranger. Faces look ugly when you're alone. No one remembers your name when you’re strange.

I find university attitide disappointing and altogether difficult to digest. I find junior college attitude pressured with suspicion and mistrust. I find school attitude filled with cliques and coded behaviour. And now that I'm away from Coventry I feel myself drifting from people I used to hang with. At uni, I am surrounded by people constantly but there is not one face I know. It's just that I'm always drifting.

: 27 Oct 2005 15:59 |  Comments (3) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

The Lying Cow

We had a staff meeting on Sunday morning before open time – well Jean calls it a 'staff meeting' but it really is a 'all staff sans kitchen staff sans chefs meeting' (i.e. only the bar and the two waitresses were there. And Precious arrived late, leaving me to brave the woman alone for the first 3/4 hour).

What was unfair and totally out of order was Jean blaming the kitchen in front of the bar. How could she!! I wanted to retort but I was too much a wimp. After telling Rob and Dan about it, Rob said he'll sort her out – since Rob is, like it or not, still kitchen manager and so if Jean has anything to say, she can say it to his face.

We took in just over £2000 in food yesterday. On that note, I cannot understand how Jean can still say we've got a leaking bucket financial situation. Plus, she lied when she said her son, as KM in another pub is taking in way over what we are doing now because Rob spoke to her son and the bloke said they take in less than the Green Man any day.

Still, the meeting was still good in the sense that we got to tell her about what we feel about her, and what it's doing to us. One thing I do understand is that she is brought in by head office to whip us back onto profit-making track. I just wonder if she'll do us good by yelling at us all the time because although I do not know what the problem with the GM is, I do not think that it lies in its staff.

: 17 Oct 2005 15:26 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem