10.02.13-Gym-going Grannies, the Power of Putty and Maggie Smith's Resemblance to a Used Carrier Bag

I've been in a terribly serious mood all day, dreading lectures because I have officially become sick of education. There was a time when University meant excitedly looking through prospectuses, declaring my undying passion for literature and eagerly buying new stationery and reading things in advance. Those days are officially gone.

Welcome to third year

 Lectures are now constructed of singing 4-minute songs in my head to count down until I can go home, I attend seminars as frequently as Gandalf buys Gilette blades and Shakespeare is starting to feel like that irritating relative everyone has who turns up all the time uninvited and drinks all your tea. I've been worried again about a lot of decision-making and again imagining all the people I know judging me for what I know they will see as some silly choices. I therefore stayed in bed until nearly 1pm (it was too cold to move anyway apart from to get some fruit for breakfast and a cup of tea, and even going downstairs to do that came with the massive death risk of being torn up alive by penguins) and then dragged my lazy arse to the gym to get some training done. I was also very angry about the pouring rain as I'd really wanted to go for a long run, not have to go to the gym and be surrounded by human beings.
However, gyms are great places to people-watch. Any gym you go to, you will see one of the following:

Just some of the fitties at your local gym

• A group of women gossiping whilst walking on the treadmill for an hour and blocking everybody else from going on there. Why are you paying gym membership? Go for a walk, it's cheaper and I don't have to listen about how "Andrea's put on a couple of pounds, must be comfortable with that new bloke of hers." I don't care.
• A woman in normal clothes, chewing gum really annoyingly whilst also walking and looking smug. Stop chewing, you look like a farm animal trying to walk along a conveyor belt and you're making me really paranoid about choking.
• A group of blokes taking it in turns to lift weights whilst the others stand and observe. It's almost PDA, stop looking at the way your mate's damp vest cleaves to his nipple.
• Mr Muscle pulling faces like a cat having a rectal thermometer reading and roaring when lifting weights. 
• Skeletal girl with hair over face looking like she's about to slip down the side of a gym mat and be lost forever.
• Old person squatting once, doing a sit-up and going home.
• Teenage girls checking in on Facebook whilst mainly standing around tying their hair back over and over again and looking in mirrors.
• Intimidating anti-social gym freak who knows exactly which machines to go on, at what levels, and for how long. The building could be bombed and they will continue until the last rep.

"Right, that's enough now,
definitely earned a bacon butty."

I probably annoy people too. I get pissed off at everyone for being there the same time as me and talk to nobody whilst secretly listening to Busted and loving it. I'm probably known as that 'anti-social cow who thinks no one can hear her shit music but doesn't realise how much the volume leaks out'.

I did feel better afterwards though. In fact my shorts were really difficult to remove because they were so sweaty my clothes actually slapped against the tiles when I took them off.

Frustration vented a little, I was able to make a start on analysing some Dylan Thomas for tomorrow's seminar but the fact that I hated every minute and gave up after one poem says a lot for how fed up I am of my degree. I can't be bothered to analyse anymore. Dylan boy, why couldn't you write something easy, like the lyrics to Abba's "Dancing Queen"? (By the way, I hate Abba and Mamma Mia made me feel physically sick, especially when I found out I'd been dragged along to a special 'sing-along' screening and all the middle-aged women started whooping and yowling along to it all. And none of my bastard friends would leave with me so I had to sit there and suffer). I have always loved Dylan Thomas, but the realisation that I can't even find fun in today's critical reading of the poem as a lament over having a flaccid willy was not enough to hold my attention. So I did my online food shopping instead, which was far less taxing and I got excited about the promise of having Marmite back in my cupboard.

Mamma Mia. Should come with a 'black box' label
warning for risk of suicide-inducing thoughts

The failed poetry analysing session got my rage climbing again. Yesterday when I got home from work, my Mum excitedly showed me something which I would apparently find "very useful" when I'm feeling highly-strung.

It was "Fart Putty".

If you have never experienced Fart Putty, it is a lump of brightly-coloured goo in a plastic pot which you poke with your fingers and it makes a noise like flatulence. 

"Nat, Nat! Ssh! Listen to this one!" My mum pressed her fingers into the pot and made the sound then burst into fits of laughter, then did it again. And again. And again. All the time this was happening, my brother had taken his pants off and was trying to pee on my leg. This is one of the reasons I had to move out to study, as revision sessions in this house can often be unproductive.

The new Diazepam

"Do you want to take it home with you in case you're stressed?" I politely declined my mother's kind offer and went home to change out of my Sainsbury's uniform and have a hot bubble bath.

Tonight however, I'm feeling so much calmer and happy. The best cure for being angsty and a bit lonely is not always exercise, or baths, or putty or even angry music (Linkin Park are often turned to in times of inexplicable angst. Chester Bennington is pissed off all the time and was definitely the sort of child who would have screamed and self-harmed with a plastic fork during his childhood if Mum had run out of potato smilies). 

The company of your best friends is always the best way to get grinning and override the critical voice in your head. It doesn't like laughter. And my friends make me laugh. A lot.

Which brings us to 'pub philosophy'. Everyone has come up with fantastic philosophies over a pint of beer (or in the case of myself and James, refillable Pepsi. Oh, the novelty). Today's observations included:

1) It's okay to get turned on by Helen Mirren as The Queen.

2) Flamethrowers can be dangerous.

3) Maggie Smith looks like a carrier bag from the back of the cupboard from when carrier bags were first invented. Or a crumpled rubber glove.

4) Anne Hathaway's face is triangular and 80% sad mouth.

5) Rain is a valid excuse to miss a lecture in case of risk of pneumonia and reduced immunity which may impair studies.

6) Men are strange and both Will and Matt want to go out wearing an elf suit and a hard hat so they can be 'Elf and Safety'.

7) Horse meat scandals are so overrated and everybody has probably eaten cat nugget at China China anyway.

Maggie Smith: for ease of carrying groceries

So today has very much been a day of observing. No, it's not made me any clearer on anything important, but it's nice to know that it costs 5p to purchase Maggie Smith's face to carry your shopping under the Welsh government.

Happy Chinese New Year by the way. It is the Year of the Snake apparently, so it's no excuse to put up decorations of cats. I also don't think it was very well-advertised this year, and I am disappointed that I didn't have enough notice to dress up as a prawn cracker.