The Connections We Make Through Gaming

Howdy ladies and gents, how you been doing? So with my blog post about solo gaming, I just wanted to make another video game post and see if I could start up any more discussions, and the subject matter today is making friends through gaming basically.

So I decided to talk about this specific subject after watching Video Games: The Movie, a documentary about the history, technology and culture of the games industry. And while it skipped over a HECK of a lot of details when it came to the 90’s, Sega’s involvement in the games industry, the 8th generation of consoles, PC gaming and some of the failed gaming experiments, at the same time it did well to highlight some of the major accomplishments, failures and entertaining aspects of the industry. The one thing that it got me thinking about is the culture, how’s it changed and the bonds people make through gaming.

Now I’ve not been on this planet that long to see the crazy highs and lows of the video game industry, however, I feel like I grew up at a really great point in time. I got to experience the last moments of 16-bit gaming, got to transition into 3D games and got to experience the best days of offline gaming without heavy impact of the internet. You see I remember a time when gaming used to be shunned, if you played games you were a nerd or were considered unsociable or uncool. However these days everyone is doing it, obviously loads of things have changed since the 90’s and 80’s, but it is interesting to how people come together to game, whether it is online, offline, at conventions or tournaments. I feel like video games, more so than other forms of media, has a gravitational pull that is too strong to ignore. And it is just insane to see how many people check out gaming-based events and become friends, events like Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), Pax East, Games Developers Conference, Tokyo Games Show, Evolution Championship Series (Evo) or tournaments for Counter-Strike and Starcraft, it’s like gaming events as big as the Grammy’s or Academy Awards.

As a gamer from the 90’s I can say that some of my best friends I have made through gaming or have had play games with me for extensive periods of time. For me playing games through local multiplayer has been some of the best gaming experiences of my life. I think things really came to high playing on the Nintendo 64, on that console I spent many days playing the FPS titles GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, both titles showed just how much of a crazy person I could be with rocket launchers and proxy mines. Then there’s the first three Mario Party games caused of the best and worst experiences with my friends (we pretty much broke up all the time when shit hit the fan). And obviously there is the first Super Smash Bros. which was some of the favourite four-player action in my childhood that wasn’t related to racing or shooting games. But when it comes to the good standard multiplayer action, the Mario Kart series is where life begins and ends. Whether it was in school, college or university, that racing series has always found a way to be part of local gaming experience. I played with friends, family and people I didn’t even know, it seems to be universally something that everyone can get down with and when you’re in a room together, things can get heated, electrify and crazy. Other games I’ve played with people and had killer times with is Halo 1-3, Call of Duty: World at War, Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2 and Phantasy Star Online Episode 1 & 2.

Another aspect of gaming that I love is the fact that you can find friends is so many unexpected ways. Like when I’ve gone to conventions and had sessions with people I didn’t know or when I came to uni and found out one of the guys in my accommodation was a hardcore gamer (heaven!) or when joined a video game society at uni and found all of these beautiful people who were just as obsessed as I was. Best times ever. The only way I haven’t found friends through gaming is online, I know it has been done before, but I’ve not really played with unknown people that much online to point where we were friends, guess I wasn’t playing the right games lol. Going back to Video Games: The Movie, it just reminded me of how unifying gaming can be with people becoming friends online or getting married thanks to video games, it just makes me think of how beautiful this form of entertainment is and how some people will never understand the fun that comes from it.

So to conclude, gaming, it a great medium for gaming. Most people that I have met are just nuts about games and they can recognise their kind straight away and like to be in each others company. In the early days some gamers stuck together just because they could only find solace with their own kind, but times have changed and most people these days just like being around people who understand them. From an outsiders point of view us gamers can be a simple bunch of people, but there is so much more to us than that. Some are fairly complex, we can shy, a bit weird or have learning difficulties, so playing games and being around gamers can be the only way we can function. And thanks to groups, tournaments, conventions and your basic local and online multiplayer games, people have and will continue to find connections through gaming.

So now things move to you, have you found friends through video games and if so was it online or offline? Also what do you think of video game culture with tournaments, conventions or marriages? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Until next time peace out people! 😀

 

The Bonds Between People; How They Can Strengthen & Shatter

Howdy ladies and gents, time for another personal and opinion-based blog post. Now friendship is a big deal to me, I consider it to be just as important if not more so than family. For those who have read this blog for at least 2 years you’ll know what I’m talking about. So today I just wanted to talk about the connection between friends and how it can be strong or fall apart.

Friendship (When It Works)

There’s no secret to a successful friendship, all you need is the following things: love, trust and commitment. If you have those 3 things you’ve got a friend for life.

For me, my friends are my lifeblood and even though I only have a handful that I adore to the highest degree, I love them all. I have made many friends over the course of my young life, ranging from old school friends to recent work colleagues. Now while I can be a bit lazy and overly emotional, at the same time most people tell me I’m great friend material.

Besides a few school friends, most of my best and most trusted friends I met when I was in college and university. It was in higher education where I met some of the most beautiful and amazing people ever and I consider them to be my family. These are people I have known between 3-20 years, and can spend endless hours with and they just kick ass. When you have people like that life is always good.

Friendship (When It Fails)

But then there are the times when things don’t work out, when the friendship tank runs out for whatever reason. Whether you grow apart or fall out, when It happens it’s never a good thing, well sometimes.

For me, most of my friends that I’ve lost has been down to growing apart after leaving school which sucked, and while I tried to keep in contact, some of these people just never hollered back. Now I hate to lose friends and it is only recent years I’ve learnt to let go of certain people. And in some cases it is actually good to let go, sometimes people who you call your friends actually can actually mess with you mentally. Some ‘friends’ can stress you out because they don’t keep in contact or choose not to, some will even go as far as to say that you’re the bad friend when clearly it is the other way round. That shit I cannot stand.

This year I had another loss in my friend circle, basically I’ve known said person for nearly 4 years and I considered us to be tight as hell. However due to a questionable conversation a few months ago, we never spoke after and now I don’t know what we are. I would like us to be friends again, but I assume they want nothing to do with me. While I understand why we are where we are, at the same time I don’t. It is not like I haven’t tried, the problem has been one of financial and distance-related issues. Plus it is hard to commute to Sheffield to London on a continuous basis especially during university time. And to say that I’m a bad friend and that I wasn’t putting any effort into is just unfair and totally bullshit. This could have easily been sorted out with a civil conversation, but alas I feel like things may be beyond that stage now.

It really is lame when someone you thought you’d be tight with forever ends up cutting contact after a short time. But when it comes to the loss of a friend I always think of the song “Drifting Apart” by Alien Ant Farm as  that song’s lyrics have always stuck with me and helped me to accept things beyond my control.

In the end friendship is great thing and all people deserve it, however sometimes it cannot always be sustained. It just depends on how much how much effort people are willing to put in.

 

I Tripped Into The New Year

All I can say is about one of my current situations is this: “You Done Fucked It Up!”

Howdy ladies and gents. So yeah, 2014 is here, I’ve waited for this new year for ages. 2013 had its moments of fun but just like previous years there was drama, drama I wanted to leave behind. So on New Years Eve I was out with my mates, drinking, dancing and waiting to usher in the new year. Then the time came. There was fireworks, smiles and photographs. It was perfect… However, I messed up.

Just after midnight I said something to someone in a text message that I didn’t mean to say. Me and the person in question have a wonderful friendship that’s just had some issues that needed to be ironed out, however my subconscious thoughts became surface thoughts under the influence. This has left me feeling guilty when I read it this afternoon. So then I tell a friend about it and try to explain myself. But I messed up my words, then went and fucked myself over again. So instead of cruising into the year in style, I buckled and almost fell over. Caused problems and the year’s only just begun.

Now I’m not a bad guy, I try to do right by people all the time especially with my friends. But every once in a while I trip up and cause problems unintentionally. And I’ve had my fair share of friendships deteriorate ever time or fall apart pretty quickly. With these two people in question I’d done so much with them, if our friendships fall through because of this little thing, it would be like I messed with some dynamite and accidentally brew up our bridges of friendship to kingdom come. I feel like I’ve created some ripples in the water which will turn into massive waves that will eventually crush me if other people hear about it. And I also feel like there’s no amount of explaining I can do to remedy my situation. I don’t understand how this has happened to me, how this keeps happening to me. Am I some sort of idiot? Some days I wonder. I don’t expect to be forgiven any time soon and if I never do then that’s another life lesson learnt. Well all I can do now is push on and endure. Whatever happens I’ll accept the consequences, I mean no one else can take the blame besides you right?

There’s a quote from Spider-Man 3 that I can’t believe I’m gonna use, but the fact it is represents my life in a very similar manner:

“I’m not a bad person, I just have bad luck.” – by Flint Marko/Sandman

So I will leave you with a quote that I feel is appropriate:

“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.” – Jack London

Imma try to remember that this year.

This better not a precursor to the rest of the year. Sorry for starting the new year on a sour note but I just had to write something about this.

 

Emotions, they can be so troublesome

Howdy people, time for another personal chapter in my life to be told. Now the last time I did something like this I was kind of aggressive and it got me in trouble before, so today I’m gonna be a little more careful how I choose my words.

Anyways today I’m here just to talk about emotions and how they’ve recently gotten me all messed up for nothing.

Emotions, as much as I like them, sometimes they can be really questionable.

Now let’s just talk about emotions, they are the characteristics that make use human and allow us to express ourselves in any way shape or form whether its via physical or verbal means. It is a necessary aspect of our lives and to be honest I dunno how we’d get through this world without them. That being said, emotions, they’re powerful things and it can lead to some explosive results depending on which one’s are used.

For those not in the know I’m a fairly emotional person. Now that doesn’t mean I cry at everything that’s sad or get pissed off about everything, though there are occasions where if I’m feeling some form of happiness or depression I can feel those emotions in full effect.

Recently my emotions have messed up on two recent occasions.

First one is a bit of a doozy. Basically around 2 weeks back when I made two blog posts related to work entitled My First Official Day At Work and Letting The Angry Man Out Of The Cage, in these posts I talked about my first few days starting my job as a kitchen porter and talking about my detest for one of the staff members who was really pissing me off. Let’s just say my words got a fair bit aggressive, and eventually someone from work found it, ratted me out to the manager and that got me dismissed from my job almost 2 weeks ago. Upon reflection I should have just kept the anger inside, but my past has experiences with aggression has always required me to vent the rage out somehow because if it stays locked inside then it’d mess me up mentally. But obviously because of my foolish decision to blog about it completely unaware of the ramifications that would befall me, I am now jobless again. It feels like working there was a short dream that I’ve woken up from because it was so short. But hey that’s what happens when you get angry, I thought I was done with my aggression but I think I still have some issues to iron out.

Anger, its been getting me in trouble since I was a kid, thought I had a lid on it recently but I guess not.

The second occasion was a little less aggressive and a lot more recent, last night in fact. I had gone out with my mates for a night of clubbing and for the most part I was have a good session… Until I saw her. As I was dancing I saw a mate of mine in the crowd and let’s just say I was kind of involved with her and I went through a bit a dramatic episode with back in the summer. While I didn’t sleep with her, I would consider her to be part of an important chapter of my life. Since she’d gone for the summer I never expected to see her at my normal clubbing spot. All those previous emotions came flooding back and messed with my head! I proper felt like a girl in one of those American TV shows that sees one of their ex-boyfriends and starts to get all flustered and asking why are they there and making things feel awkward. I was probably overreacting, but it was the fact that she’d come back and hadn’t said a word to me which bugged me. There was several points when our eyes locked and it felt like she looked right through me, even when we were right next to each other. Bugged me so much and it didn’t help because I’d been drinking in addition to all those emotions floating around in my head. 😦

I think after all this time I’m still lovesick.

In the end I’m starting to think that my emotions are doing me no favours. All they do is bring out sides of me or highlight thinks I don’t actually like about myself. Hoping I get a hold of myself before I fall into a hole that I can’t get out of.

 

Rant 13: Why’s it So Hard For Some People To Just Be Friendly?

Howdy people and welcome to another instalment in my blogging rants. Today’s rant wasn’t initially gonna be a rant but the more I thought about the issue, the more it started to annoy me. So today I’ll be talking about those annoying people in the world that aren’t forthcoming and make themselves hard to befriend. Now I know that not everybody is as willing to make contact with other people and be super friendly like me, however if someone is trying to make the effort to talk to you, perhaps even be your friend, the least you could do is be nice and acknowledge them. I’ve seen it many times, you approach people with a friendly, happy-go-lucky attitude and there will be one of several outcomes:

1. They’re actually nice and will talk to you.
2. They’ll hesitantly talk to you (though you see that they’re not entirely comfortable)
3. They’ll pretend to be nice and then act differently around you later or talk about ya behind your back.

All of those situations I have listed have happened to me and I honestly hate that shit. I can’t believe how cruel, insensitive and immature some people can be. I mean extending a hand of friendship is not bad thing, if anything it should be embraced, but for some people it’s the hardest thing ever.

The reason I bring this up is because recently I went on a trip to London in group with several people I’d eventually be working with, so I attempted to be friendly, talked to a few people and was just my quirky, jolly old self. Some took to me okay, some liked me and others weren’t so keen. However what I found was that there was a few people who I’d befriended, and then heard them talking smack about me behind my back, though I could hear them from a distance. And that’s the kind of stupid, immature shit that I can’t stand.

There are those sneaky bastards who pretend to be nice, but are really fakers and that kind of behaviour is so unacceptable yo.

To add to deceit, on the next occasion when we saw each other a few days later, these people didn’t even talk to me, they saw me, looked me in the face and walked on by. WHAT THE HELL MAN!?! I don’t understand how some people’s minds work. How can some run around being so deceitful and play with people’s emotions? Can’t stand that kind of shit. Since when was I so repulsive that people would have to do such petty things to me? Well whatever I guess I’m just gonna have to get over it and learn to work with these people for the sake of teamwork and the future of my finances.

 

Make a bond with me and it’ll last forever

Ah yes, now we’re back on that topic of friendship again. What can I say, this subject means a lot to me. Now I’ve made a few blog posts about what friendship before including Friendship is a beautiful thing, one that meant a lot to me when I wrote it. But today I’m going to talk a little more about me and how great a friendship could be with someone like me.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Now I’m not saying that I’m like the best guy ever, however if we come across each other and we make a connection and create a bond it will be for the long-term. I like to help people and make them feel jolly, that’s the kind of person I am. I honestly believe in being a nice guy and making connections with people along your travels in life. It all starts in school and obviously continues later in life in college, university, jobs and just in life in general, and I never pass up an opportunity to find potential friends to add to my collection.

I’m really passionate about making long-term bonds with people that will hopefully last a lifetime. Why? Because I’ve seen in my days on this planet that friendship is like a special bond with people that can’t be broken and its beautiful when something like that can stand the test of time even if you live apart or don’t see each other for substantial amounts of time too.

True that!

Now I’m only 22 (going on 23 in just under 2 weeks), but I’ve already made special bonds with some of my good friends that’s lasted 5, 10 and almost 20 years! And to me that’s just extreme happiness. In my gap year before uni I realized that what makes me really happy besides doing things for myself is doing stuff for others. Helping and giving to others has always made me feel good, and it took me until the age of 21 to figure it out. That’s why I’ve always put other people’s problems and issues before my own and helped them out in any way that I could. I’ve been doing it since school, and most people loved me for it. I have put myself out there for people in many ways, from being a shoulder to cry on to talk to about relationship advice to sharing intimate secrets. I’ve even ran out of my house just to meet my peeps if they needed me. I’m that hardcore!

However there have been many that have taken advantage of my good will, but luckily I grew a backbone and told those punks to get lost in my later teen years. So now I’m in uni and my journey to make new bonds and friendships haven’t ended yet! I’ve found four guys who I love more so than most of my mates and I’ve only known them for just over a year and a half, but it feels like it’s been at least 3 or 4 years now.

There they are along with me in the middle! XD

These guys I hope that I’ll know for at least 10 years or more. And there’s my 2 best comrades in the universe, known as Alon and Chris. They’ve been my friends since September 2007 when we did media together in college. Our bond is the most amazing thing that I;ve felt in years and I can only hope we can go 5 more years to complete a decade of friendship. Here’s a picture below:

New Years 2011. That was one of our most special moments in time!

Well to conclude I just wanted to share with you a little about me and how I feel about friendship. So if I ever meet you and we vibe together then we may end up forming a bond for a while too. I love people and I love to make friends so if anyone wants a reliable, trustworthy and honest friend that’ll be there for them in a heartbeat then I’m your guy! 🙂

 

Rant 06: I Hate Being Left Out

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another installment in my blogging rants and today’s subject will be on how I hate being left out of things in general.

Now I know this really a trivial and selfish thing, but it really does suck when you’re the one left out or forgotten about when it comes to family and friends doing fun and exciting things. It’s happened to me for years since my days since school and while some of these occasions I have been able to get over, in more recent years it really does feel like some of the people I know have done it on purpose.

No one likes to be left out of anything fun, me especially.

To be honest I love to be at the center of all things fun, whether it be with my friends or family, I just love to be part of great and happy situations like birthdays, weddings or nights out in the company of good friends. Though unfortunately there are occasions where you cannot be there to experience the epic happy times either because you weren’t invited or because you couldn’t be there and it does suck when you can’t be part of it.

Ever since I was a child I guess I’ve never liked the concept of missing out on anything fun when it comes to my friends and since in recent years I’ve gotten attached to people a lot more, when they do things that sound hella fun  can get incredibly jealous very quickly. I know this sounds childish and trivial but I can’t help it, it’s just in my nature to be part of things and if I’m not there I feel like I’m missing out on good times. And since coming to Sheffield and hanging with my new friends thata I’ve with in my flat over the course of my first year in student accommodation, there have been occasions where I’ve gone home for certain durations of time vary from a weekend to 2 weeks and in that time there always to be something fun going down when I’m away! And while I assume they don’t do it on purpose, sometimes the stuff they get up to is really the kind of stuff I’ve wanted to do with them like going to certain bars or eating at certain restaurants or going on nights out to places the normally wouldn’t and it just bugs me so much that they just can’t wait for me.

Unfortunately I’ve been in this situation many times ans I don’t know why.

At the time of writing this I have been left out of another situation, while I won’t go into the detail as to what specifically it is, in the end I was technically deserted and left to party on my own while I was left out again. Annoyingly there seems to be a pattern forming on my nights out with my friends and situations like these where I’m the odd one out are starting to become more and more apparent. Who knows? Maybe I just need a change of scenery and another set of people to hang with. And just for the record it’s not like I set myself up for these scenarios, I am genuinely a nice guy with very bad luck. 😦

But hell whatever, I just wanted to rant about being left out of fun situations and I guess for now I am done ranting, thanks for reading! 😀

 

Life and Stability

Good day to you people of WordPress and welcome to another blog post. It’s strange a haven’t made a done anything on my blog for a few days now which is very strange by my standards, though I have had a lot on and have had to change the material I was going to put up. So in the end I decided to talk about where I am in life and stability, two things that are quintessential to anyone trying to get by in this world.

My life since becoming a university student has been a turbulent rollercoaster ride of ups and downs that come with being a student away from home and living that lifestyle that you only here about it stories. While my experience here in Sheffield wasn’t like I anything expected, in a way I wouldn’t take it back because it’s all part of the learning experience and of course, growing up too.

Since coming to university I have realised that stability is a necessity, everything needs a sense of perspective and normality, without it things can go wrong, it can turn mess with you emotionally and send you into a world of chaos! In my case when I came to university to do my animation course I treated it like I did with college; I worked but I was also lazy a great deal of the time coz in my mind everything was stable enough for me to handle. My laziness never really came back to bite me in the arse until January when I had to had in 3 assignments in one day and let’s just say everything ended in a very messy fashion due to bad timing and computer malfunctions. It also didn’t help that while all of this chaos was going on in my course I had problems with my finances. To sum it up in an abbreviated fashion my accommodation cost more than the amount I got from student finance, so I was behind on many payments and in a constant fear of being kicked out. I had to borrow lots of cash off of my family, I had to sell my Nintendo DS and games and also cut down on the amount food I ate just to stay afloat. It was a dark time in my world that almost broke me completely. I lived in an unstable where everything was in a constant state of flux…

For a while this was the level of stability in my world…

Luckily things started to look up after March started up, there was my return to the cinema that got me back into a familiar groove when I went to see John Carter and The Hunger Games in one day in the Cineworld in Sheffield and then there was my birthday a few weeks ago that put me in the happiest place I’d been in for a long time. And I finally got a taste of stability when I paid off all of my money that I owed to my accommodation. All that fear and panic that had plagued my mind for months disappeared and I felt like a massive weight had been lifted off of my shoulders! So with this newfound level of freedom I went back home in the Easter and watched The Cold Light of Day, Wrath of the Titans and 21 Jump Street in the cinema which felt like the normal me. I also bought myself a Nintendo 3DS with Mario Kart 7 and Kid Icarus: Uprising which has put me in a good groove. Seeing my family back in Luton and London put a massive grin on my face (the free dinners made me epic happy! XD) and when I got to catch up with all my lovely friends in Luton and on one trip to Milton Keynes it was a great feeling!!

However it hasn’t been all plain sailing. When I came back home for Easter I was faced with many moments of frustration and  grumpiness because of the people around me and the overall atmosphere that comes with being back in Luton. Firstly let’s start with my friends, now don’t get me wrong I love my friends, they’re my heart and soul yo. And it is hard to live so far away from them in Sheffield whereas before I went to university they all used to be within walking distance back in Luton. So when I’m away they tell me so much that they wanna hang out and that they miss me, however when I got back most of them didn’t wanna hang at all besides a select few. And it’s not like I didn’t try to contact them, I sent text messages but they never got back to me or others I hollered at on Facebook who said they would hang out only from them to cancel or say that something had come up. That’s just a few of the scenarios that I’ve had to put up with. I think a lot of this was due to scheduling conflicts and the fact that I came back at an awkward time in the Easter when my friends had other plans. But some people really didn’t have an excuse as they didn’t have anything on and just didn’t get back to me. The main issue with some of my friends is the communication element. There is none.

Miscommunication. A very troublesome thing in life. It happens a lot to me.

I try to contact friends by every means possible and yet I never get a holla back. And that’s what really frustrated me when I spent my 12 days back in Luton. All those so-called friends really didn’t seem all that friendly and it was really annoying because a lot of them I wanted to see but couldn’t because they were useless in the communication department…

Also I didn’t realise until I hanged in Luton for a week how much the place saps the energy out of me. Outside of the cinema, my friends and seeing my family, there’s no reason for me to go back home for an extended duration of time. I mean I don’t hate the place and I have a lot of nostalgia there, but going back recently has just felt long, tiresome and funky. This Easter I saw a good few family members which was great, I got to hang with my best friends and went to the cinema and caught up on some long hours of TV. But other than that it just felt horrible. I missed Sheffield extremely after just a few days and wanted to get back there so soon. So yeah I got back to Sheffield at the start of this week and the normality of hanging around my flatmates kicked in and I felt at peace with myself. While I still have a fair amount of uni work to get on with in a short amount of time and I still haven’t got my finances completely sorted yet, I’m sure with hard work and a little hope I’ll get by. Plus I have a lot to look forward to with The Avengers coming out next Thursday here in the UK which I’m totally hyped and can’t wait for anymore and then in May I get see Men In Black 3 which will have to be good because its got Will Smith in it XD Also waiting to play Sonic 4: Episode 2 and break in my PS3 too. Then there’s the MCM London Expo, my place of happiness, I will be attending later on next month. And lastly of course the summer is edging ever closer so when that kicks in I’ll be bleeding it dry coz its my favourite time of year! So times can only get better from here 😀

Life is a balancing act, you could fall at any time if you’re not careful. So keep your guard up yo!

So in conclusion I just want to tell anyone who is reading this that life needs stability for it to be enjoyed and whatever problems or troubles you have in your life weather them out and find your own sea of tranquillity. I think I have finally found mine. How long it’ll last will be down to time and whether fate will keep me in my happy place. I just hope all of you out there have a level of stability of your own too because it is necessary for life.

 

Birthdays Are Awesome!

You know birthdays are interesting little things aren’t they? It is the one day in the year that symbolizes your age and it is that one special day to celebrate your existence in the world. The anticipation towards this one day can be pretty immense depending on the specific age or occasion and besides Christmas, it is the most important time of the year for most people. But when that day normally comes it can be an incredible experience. Being around your family and friends on that day is a great feeling because you are around people who love and care about you, also depending on how old you are you can get presents too which can be an exciting experience in itself.

Birthdays, they are just an excuse to have fun 😀

Either way your birthday is the one day for you to be you, to enjoy life and celebrate the fact that you’ve made it one more day into a new age with new and exciting opportunities ahead of you. Well that’s what birthdays mean to me.

Just recently (yesterday in fact) I turned 22 and it was a pretty crazy lead-up to the day. I had been waiting for this day in particular since January when me and my faltmates had a flat party and went out for one of their birthdays and that was an incredible, unforgettable night and I wanted the same for myself when my night came around. Not only that but last year I never went out or did anything big for my 21st birthday so the event for my 22nd was gonna have to be big to make up for not doing anything last year. this year I decided to have a flat party with all of the people I have met since coming to Sheffield. So then Friday came along and I woke up to lovely birthday messages on my phone and Facebook. Then headed off to class in uni only to find out there was no class, so that annoyed me a little bit, but at the same time I was like “Yay no class!” So then when my second class came around I went into that and got a birthday wish off a friend and an even bigger and louder happy birthday off of my other classmate which resulted in several other people who I didn’t know giving me happy birthday wishes too, so that was unexpectedly nice 😀

 

So in class outside of doing work I had some interesting and funny conversations with my mates before heading back to my flat. Then I went out to the pub with my flat mate and some other friends and while playing pool one of my other classmates who had promised me cake finally sorted me some cake, it was incredible. I swear it was like one of the best moments of my life. I don’t get given many things from my friends, so the fact I got a whole cake from a classmate from university who I haven’t known for very long was very touching. She is definitely gonna be one of my best friends for life! So we continued to chill at the pub and had some food before rushing back to the flat to make a playlist and fix it up before the party people started showing up. Then people started coming, the music started playing (even if it wasn’t always from my playlist) and the drinking began. It was just a great feeling to be around all of these people who said that they were gonna come, I felt so loved. We all danced, drank, hugged and I took so many pictures it was insane. It was a beautiful atmosphere of smiles and chaos. So much stuff got messed up. Stools moved up and down the hallway, me and my flatmates’s rooms keep being invaded, two of my mates were dressed in wonzies at one point and the drinking game known as “Battleshots” was mad. Though the night didn’t end there, we eventually went out on the town and danced and raved it up in the clubs of Sheffield it was great. There was a lot of last night I don’t remember, but luckily from what I do recall I did have fun, probably the most amount of fun I’ve had in a long time.

So yeah I just wanted to share with you people of the internet my delightful birthday experience. This birthday more than made up for my 21st and even though it was my first birthday away from home and my family, my parents did call me and I got a funny text off my sister too so it was all good 🙂 I just wanted to say that birthdays are awesome and they can be fun for anyone if you let them be 😀

 

Those Crazy Uni Days!

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another blog post. Tonight’s post is going to be a little simpler in nature to most of the hardcore film and video game posts I’ve been doing recently. It’s literally gonna be me talking about me and my recent crazy perspective on my life in university.

University life… Yes, it is all it’s cracked up to be and then some. It has certainly impressed me and passed my expectations.

Since coming to university in Sheffield back in September and being initially shocked at how big the city was, how many things there were to see and do and also shocked by the whole nightlife. However a lot of time has passed and now I have a much better perspective on things and looking back on things even though I have suffered greatly, have metal breakdowns and been on the edge of sanity at the same time I’ve had so much fun and have so many stories to tell, in the end I’m so glad I came here.

From September I came here and got to know my flatmates, we’d gone out in the first initial weeks of uni and we danced, we got drunk and raved into the early hours of the morning. Me and my flatmate Craig also found the gaming society in our uni and became part of that and since then they have become part of my family, just hanging out and gaming, good times, nothing comes close to a good game session with good people 😀 With the game society we’ve gone to Quasar (Lazer Quest) twice and gone a good few nights out in socials and just on general nights of clubbing. It’s been fantastic. And speaking of clubbing… Man, I have gone out so much its unreal. While not every night out has been perfect or completely memorable, when a good night has come along, my god, they have come and been some of the best times of my life in the company of brilliant people I’m glad to call my friends. Even if we’re not going out and raving it up, I’m just chilling inside in my flat with my flat mates gaming, messing around or having dancing sessions or sometimes we go out to meet our mates at their houses or meet up in the park and do more hanging. Also one of the best things about the people I have met up here in Sheffield is that some of those friends I met have now become the lovely people I shall be living with next year in our new house that we’ll be transferring into in July and to be honest I couldn’t have asked for better people to leave with. We’re all so similar, firstly we’re all gamers which is like the best thing ever in my life, plus we’re all into cartoons especially Adventure Time and we seem to gel really well as a group but also as individuals, it’s just fabulous.

And obviously the course I’m taking at university does come into play somewhere haha and to be honest its pretty good. I mean at first in the first few months leading up to Christmas I really didn’t like what we were doing all that much, there was a lot to do with blogging, essay assignments and working with complicated and frustrating animation software like 3DS Max and Adobe Flash which annoyed me to the highest heavens! Though there was some nice things to do like doing screencasts and actually learning how to animate in the second and third dimension because I had never tampered with anything like that before coming to university. Luckily the course finally picked up after January started with us doing some stop motion animation and though the experience was just as frustrating as it was in college, but thankfully it was a much shorter and funnier experience. Then we moved onto doing 2D animation again, but this time it was with a program called Pencil and it was a hell of a lot easier to use than Flash. Using this software we had to do walk and run cycles. Plus it was a completely new experience as I was working with tablets. Though I had used one briefly in college, art tablets are just alien to me. The project was finished recently and it was fun but caused be a great deal of stress when my work decided to disappear, become corrupted or the software would crash on many occasions. I had to deal with so much hassle on the night before and on the day of the work deadline. Luckily like a don I preserved and got my work on time because I’m frigging awesome! It really was a close call but as I put it “I bet the system!”

As I said before while I have had so many great moments in university, I have also faced some of the darkest days I have ever seen in my life. I have been in the deep end with coursework, having awkward moments of friendship with people and been in financial ruin on several occasions to the point where it nearly destroyed my world. It really did affect my life and the way I acted for a long time. Luckily I have the support of my family and friends that has kept my spirits above the pont of drowning into a state of depression and I’ve never been more thankful for their existence.

Family and friends, the most important people in my world, especially in the last few months.

In the end even though my first year of university isn’t quite over yet, it’s been a turbulent rollercoaster ride of different emotions, situations, scenarios and life-changing stuff. And though some of those of experiences I wish I’d never lived through, I don’t regret it because they say whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger and I believe I am a much stronger individual because of my trials and tribulations. all I can do now is look forward to the future which is looking pretty bright, I have the MCM London Expo to look forward to, plus I’ll be moving into my new house in a little while, plus The Avengers will be out next month and lastly it’ll be my birthday in 2 days!!! Hooray for me, I can’t wait!!

Thanks for reading yo 😀