I realise I haven’t written in ages, but it is because I have been living the life of a student who didn’t try hard enough in the first term; drinking more coffee, less alcohol and even more coffee.

Fortunately, Starbucks coffee is sold in the library.

Anyways, while spending endless hours in the library pouring over cascades of material for questions that probably wont even come up in my exams, I have become more and more irritated by “that kid” who keeps souring my study time - the one who never learnt proper library etiquette. 

I don’t tend to like people that much as it is, but answer your phone in the library and prepare to suffer the wrath of my scornful stares, loud tongue-clicks and deep exhalations.

So, without trying to sound to whiny or patronising, I have taken it upon myself to educate the obnoxious, the self centered, and the thick-witted.

(1) Talking in the library

Talking to your friends in the library can be helpful and make revision and work a little more bearable. That is, talking in the social area of the library. However, I fail to understand how people can’t seem to be able to decipher the pretty self-explanatory rules of the ‘silent’ area.  

Sure, it’s sometimes necessary to ask someone something in a hushed whisper that must not exceed two minutes. But full blown conversations..?! Who are these people?! And what are they doing?!

Popular topics of discussion when this happens are ‘getting with that guy’ and ‘getting shitfaced’ and whether the former, the latter, or both were accomplished the previous night. 

Firstly, if you feel that topics like this really need a full discussion and debate, you need to sort your life out. And secondly, no one cares. Get out of my library.

Also, I’d just like to put a shout out to all those ‘shushers’ out there. Keep up the good work guys.

(2) Eating in the library

There is a reason why there is a ‘no eating’ rule for the silent area of the library. I do not want to hear you rummaging around in a crisp packet. I do not want to smell your tuna sandwiches. And I do not want to hear you crunch or squelch your food in your mouth. If you insist on having anything besides a bottle of water, please have a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up. And preferably spill it all over yourself. 

(3) Where to sit in the library

Unless the library is particularly full, do not sit next to someone you don’t know, when there are other places you could be sitting. Under absolutely no circumstance is it acceptable for you to sit next to me in a deserted room. If you do, I will assume there is something wrong with you. I will then spend the next half an hour glaring at you.

(4) Music

I get it - working with music on in the background can make work more enjoyable. However, to all those people who like their music really loud, we can all hear it too. And we all think you have an awful taste in music. Especially as you keep listening to the same LMFAO song on repeat. I do not want to hear that song unless I am out and suitably drunk. I especially do not want to listen to that song 16, maybe 17, times in a row - I’m not sure, I lost count after 10.

Oh, and stop clicking your pen in time with the ‘wiggle wiggle wiggle’ bit.

(5) Mobile phones

Stop answering your phone in the library. No, I do not want to hear what you’re having for dinner tonight. And if there is a genuine emergency, it does not take two minutes to walk out of the silent area. There’s nothing more frustrating than hearing “Woah shit, what the hell happened? Is everyone okay?” without finding out the rest of the story. Stop teasing us and take your phone call somewhere else. Also, to all those people who put their phone on vibrate — out of courtesy, of course — so that their text messages, arriving by the minute, don’t disturb the other students, you’re a twat. That is all.

(6) Laptops

To the guy who feels compelled to pound his keyboard like a concert pianist when he types, I literally hate you. Stop it. Now.

I understand that for a lot of people, this may be challenging to take in all at once. I suggest you print it out and refer to it if need be. 

“This year is going to be my year. I will be fabulous.”

“No, really.”

“Why are you laughing..?”

New years resolutions. Yet another incredibly illogical and ridiculous convention fed by petty consumerism and mere stupidity of the human race. Christmas has been and gone. There is no money left, everyone has eaten their body weight (and in my case, someone else’s body weight too..) of Christmas food and the stress of returning to jobs (or exams, for those fellow students out there) looms. Life is looking pretty bleak. So what do we do? We look to better ourselves. This year is going to be even better. We aim to start saving money, losing weight, and kicking those bad habits once and for all…

But not just yet. We could start right this second but instead we’ll wait until the 1st of January. No point in starting before the first day of the New Year, right? So until then lets squander the little money we have left on things we don’t need in the sales, eat as much as we can possibly stuff ourselves with and slob in front of the TV only putting any effort into changing the channel. And then, on the 1st of January, and only then, will we begin our new lives. Wonderful.

Although we’ll probably forget/be too hung-over/still be out partying on the 1st of January to remember our new start. So maybe we should leave it until the 2nd - what’s one day, right? And nothing cures a hangover like eating as much greasy food as we can manage to cook anyway, so the diet’s out the window on the 1st regardless. Oh, but then there were plans to go shopping on the second, take advantage of all the sales etc. And if we think about it, there are things we need to buy and technically its much better sense to spend all our money now while everything’s a bit cheaper.. So maybe we’ll wait until next month to start saving money.. And then after the stressful day of shopping and the dreaded first day back to work after Christmas and New Years, that ache to give into a cigarette/drink/other bad habit starts poking us and we think to ourselves: ‘well, one wont hurt’.. 

A couple of days later and you hear yourself utter those inevitable words… “Maybe next year.”

I’ve heard all the excuses. Largely coming out of my own mouth. 

“I don’t have time.”

“It’s too expensive.”

“If I try to give it up I will suffer from severe withdrawal symptoms, fall into a state of depression, become reclusive and turn into a crazy person plotting to kill everyone before I eventually kill myself..”

But I am still one of them; one of the ever so predictable idiots whose worst habit in need of getting rid of is the making of completely unrealistic new years resolutions that will only end up in failure and self-loathing. I know this, I really do.

But once again, this year I have a list of new years resolutions:

1. Lose weight - this is the top of the list every year. It’s about time I came to terms with the fact that I’m always going to be a little bit fat and give up on this one. While I would like to treat my body like a temple, sometimes my temple wants chocolate. And lots of it. 

2. Save money - this is another very popular new years resolution for me. I am what you might call a spendaholic - a condition that has not yet been subject to medicalization and therefore unfortunately has no treatment. So I have to brave it alone. But as a student this is practically impossible. Going out is a part of student culture; it’s practically a tradition. A tradition that I need to look pretty for. So I need a new dress every time I go out. And then I wont have any shoes to go with that dress so we’ll buy some of them too. And while I’m in town I might as well buy some more make up. Especially as it’s on offer - it makes much more sense to buy it now while it’s cheaper even though I don’t need it just yet. And oooh look there’s some completely pointless thing that I will never actually use but the packaging says I need it and it’s on offer so I’ll add that to my basket too.. And then I’ll need to buy a ticket for the club we’re going to tonight. I’ll even buy it earlier so it’s a whole pound cheaper! And then lose it so I have to buy another one at the door anyways.. Then I’ll need to buy alcohol - there are only so many free drinks you can get by fluttering your eye lashes at the bar tender..  The morning after you feel absolutely crap. You’re hair is stuck to your face, make up melted down your face, you’re wearing someone else’s clothes and there are curious bruises all over your body. The guilt sets in: definitely should have stayed in and done some much needed work instead of spending all that money. Regardless, you feel rubbish - so it’s a necessity to go to Costa and spend an obscene amount of money on coffee so you can actually function for the rest of the day. 

3. Spend more time doing the work for my course - also another fairly popular one for me. It’s also the one I keep up the longest. You see, in January every year for as long as I can remember I’ve had exams. Ones for which I have done absolutely no work prior to the Christmas holidays and whether it was a new years resolution or not, by the time January hits I will be madly tearing up books in an effort to actually learn something. My exams this year finish on the 26th of January. This is the date I predict I will end up giving up on this resolution.

4. Generally stop being so lazy and start getting dressed before noon - This does not mean changing into pjs and out of the clothes from the night before. 

5. Spend less time of facebook, tumblr, youtube, 4od.. The Internet in general - When I say less time, this counts if that’s only like a couple of minutes less a week, right? Otherwise I should probably just give up on this one before I’ve even started it.

…

What strikes me is that if I really wanted to achieve these things, why am I not starting them now? I’ll tell you why: pure laziness. It’s almost like we know we should want to do these things to make ourselves ‘better’ but we don’t really want to. So if we all try it together and then fail together, firstly we don’t have to feel guilty that we failed - everyone else has too, and secondly we can say that we ‘tried’ which means now for the rest of the year we can enjoy being fat, lazy, and poor. 

Next year my new years resolution is going to be to not make any resolutions at all, thereby making, keeping, and breaking the new years resolution all in one. 

Happy near year guys :)

Some old people are just adorable. You see them waddling along with their little trollies just going about their business in their day to day lives, smiling and telling the same old ‘in my day..’ stories. It just makes your heart melt. 

And then there are the rest. The impatient, the rude and the damn right senile. I hate old people. 

Now, I realise that some of you are going to think I’m a horrible, disrespectful person and will be appalled by this blog entry.. 

But firstly, I don’t really care how awful you think I am; I’m already aware of it myself. “I’m going to hell” bla bla bla. Meh. I’ll deal with that when it comes along. And secondly, well, I really do hate old people.

I generally don’t like people as it is. Bratty youngsters that think they’re all ‘hard, innit’, petty customers who will complain about ANYTHING just because they have some kind of superiority complex, pretentious authors of books that I have to read for my course who may as well be writing in Russian for all I can understand, drunken predators in clubs who hunt us girls down like prey as though they’re some kind of ‘stud’, Asian people who insist on being so damn good at everything and showing the rest of us up… the list goes on and on. These people should have to own some kind of permit that only lets them out once a week. Preferably Sundays. I don’t generally go out on Sundays.

But old people really do top that list.

Perhaps one of the reasons they annoy me so much, is because I’m on the defensive. They think we’re all idiots. Ok, well to be fair, there are alot of idiots out there. But I do not appreciate being stereotyped along with all of these people. I will admit I have my moments, I dye my hair accordingly blonde after all, but overall I don’t intend on being a complete failure in life. I do a law degree, I make pretty good grades and I hope to have a pretty good job later on in life. But this doesn’t count for anything when you’re up against an old person. You could be a freakin’ rocket scientist having won various nobel prizes, but by virtue of their well ‘advanced’ age and and inherent experience, they think they know more than you do. 

Oh, but could you help them with their computer? There’s all these pesky buttons but none of them seem to turn the blasted thing on. Just be sure not to patronise them when you see that its not actually plugged in. They don’t take kindly to that - they still know better than you, after all.

Just because you’re old enough to have lived through the war does not make you better than me. You didn’t even fight for our country, you were barely even old enough to remember it. Now pipe down about society owing you for your war efforts before I punch you in the face.

And then there’s the driving habits. Old people should not be allowed on the road. They either drive slower than tractors or too fast to control what their doing. I understand, they have slower reactions, it’s not their fault, bla bla bla. Regardless, that doesn’t justify the fact that they’re allowed on the roads! These people can barely see over the dashboard, gripping the steering wheel for dear life, hunched over it like their giving birth to it - its no wonder they cause so many accidents. Why is some old bat’s independence valued more than the safety of everyone else on the road?!

And it’s not only those on the road that are at danger of death by driving biddy. While they may not be regarded under the same category as joyriding teenagers, (well not anymore anyways..) there are still plenty of pensioners on mobility scooters causing havoc. And while 8mph may not seem like much of a danger, let me tell you, being rammed in the back of the ankles because some old biddy decided that you didn’t have quick enough reaction times to get out of the way isn’t exactly the most comfortable of experiences. Comes with some pretty impressive bruises mind you..

You smell funny, you make entirely inappropriate racist comments, you forget to close your mouth after you’ve stopped talking, and worst of all, you contribute absolutely nothing to society. “Well, I used to” I hear you say. Well, I used to crap my pants when I was little, but we’ve all moved on. You should, too. Why not actually do something to benefit society and stick to baking pies please. Just so you know, apple pies are my favourite. 

1. You’re up a stupid hours of the morning unnecessarily writing a list of things that all students do while they’re at university.

2. You’re still wide awake at this time because your body clock is now officially nocturnal.

3. 9am lectures are a myth.

4. You prioritise sleep over the thousands of pounds your spending on education because you manage to convince yourself that if you get any less than your usual 15 hours of sleep, you will get ill. And die.

5. Sleeping is also preferable to climbing 10 flights of stairs to stand outside in the freezing cold when the fire alarm goes off. Even if it does come with the consequence of burning alive.

6. You only go to the lectures you know: you can get away with not having done any work for/ are on after 12pm/ you can fall asleep in and no one will notice.

7. When you do eventually get up you will spend all day in pyjamas but then go to bed fully clothed because you’re too drunk to function and forget about undressing yourself after a night out.

8. You regularly find yourself trying to piece together what happened last night by the texts you made, the photos that end up on facebook and the road signs that end up in your room.

9. You spend more time tagging photos from last night than you did actually taking the photos.

10. You know facebook is ruining your degree but you continue to spend hours mindlessly stalking that person you’ve never actually spoken to but know everything about because of facebook.

11. 40% becomes your motto in life.

12. Google practically writes your essays for you. Those textbooks you bought are still sitting in the corner of your room unopened. Even though you had to give up eating for a month to afford them.

13. Eating becomes an expensive chore.

14. Kitchen equipment is too complicated. Anything can be cooked in a microwave. Even if the packaging says it can’t.

15. Nothing will get washed up unless its absolutely necessary. Therefore eating cereal out of a mug with a fork is perfectly acceptable.

16. The reason you look forward to going home at christmas is not because you get to see your family and friends but because you don’t have to survive off of baked beans on toast

17. Also because you can have the heating on full without worrying because you don’t have to pay for it.

18. You spend lots of time in the library. But not because you’re studying for the exam you’ve got tomorrow - you wont be starting on that until 3am tomorrow morning - instead its because its warm in the library and you’re too poor to afford heating in your house.

19. In fact you’re too poor to afford alot of things…

20. You’ve completely exhausted bbc iplayer, itv player and 4od because you can’t afford a TV license.

21. 8p instant noodles are a staple food in your diet.

22. You can only afford the bus if you’ve managed to find enough 5p’s around your room.

23. You charge your phone and laptop up at the library to save on electricity bills.

24. You have to pay for a £1 loaf of bread with your debit card because you don’t have any money on you.

25. You develop a phobia of checking your bank balance.

26. However, no matter how poor you are, you will always have enough money for alcohol.

27. You start counting your money according to how many drinks you can buy with it instead of in pounds and pennies.

28. The week after you get your student loan you live life like a celebrity. You then spend the following months in poverty.

29. Clinical trials become a regular income and you wonder why anyone bothers to get an actual job.

30. You start to find it hard to believe that life outside of university actually exists.

31. World War 3 could start and you would have no idea unless it featured in your only source of news; Russell Howard’s Good News show.

32. Real life after uni scares you. You wish you could be a student forever but don’t want to be the creepy mature student that everyone knows is a serial rapist plotting on anyone who goes near them.

33. You’re also worried about becoming and functioning as an ‘actual’ adult. You wonder if spraying your clothes with frebreeze instead of washing them and ironing them with GHD’s is still acceptable once you hit 25. 

34. You also worry that getting a job will get in the way of your busy schedule of procrastinating.

35. You’ve finished reading this and now you’re wondering what you can do next to carry on procrastinating.

It was 27th May 1993 when President Boris Yeltsin signed the decree, granting freedom for so many. Homosexuality was no longer forbidden in Russia.

But it seems that even though Russia has declared homosexuality as legal and has signed various (apparently meaningless) international treaties on human rights, the social war as to the inexcusable homophobia that is so deeply entrenched into Russian society, still rages on. 

In the past couple of weeks, St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly has seen increased criticism from within Russia and all around the world as to a proposed ‘anti-gay’ law that will forbid “public actions aimed at propaganda of pederasty, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism among minors” and is intended to limit any public discussion or display about the LGBT community.

This would inevitably mean that all public events carried out by LGBT organisations, and publications of anything relating to LGBT, including information leaflets and publications in the media and on the internet, would be forbidden.

Other cities in Russia including Moscow have already planned legislation to ban ‘propaganda for homosexuality’, while Arkhangelsk and the Riazan region have already introduced such measures.

Valentina Matviyenko, Chair of the Federation Council and former St. Petersburg Governor, supported the bill. He said: “If I were a member of the Legislative Assembly, I would support this bill, because no one has the right to involve a child in things like that… everything that destroys the mind and health of a child, a minor — all this should be strictly blocked. If this law has a positive effect, then we can consider expanding it to the national level.” (?!)

The draft bill, introduced by the chair of the Legislative Assembly’s legislation committee and United Russia’s deputy Vitaly Milonov, has passed it’s first out of three hearings almost unanimously by the Legislative Assembly on the 16th November and was scheduled for it’s second hearing yesterday (23rd November). That second hearing however has been postponed until the 30th November so that a “double-check all legal definitions related to this bill” can be carried out - presumably the result of the amount of people challenging the idea of the bill.

There have been many demonstrations in St Petersburg against the law, and LGBT rights group AllOUt.org launched an emergency petition against the legislation, which has reached a staggering amount of signatories. (Sign it! Sign it!)

AllOut.org Co-founder Andre Banks said: “Because Russia is a powerful nation, the international community has stayed silent—not one major world leader has yet to speak out against this bill. That hasn’t stopped tens of thousands around the world from raising their voices and standing with the beleaguered LGBT community in Russia, who are being used as a political punching bag in the run up to elections.”

It also seems that the Legislative Assembly has forgotten that Russia is party to both the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which make clear that the freedom to receive and impart information cannot be limited, except under the ambit of public order. On Monday, lawyers for activist Nikolai Baev sent a letter to the European Court of Human Rights asking the body to review his case against the law. Baev argues that penalties against the promotion of homosexuality violate both the right to freedom of expression guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Article 14 of the Convention, which prohibits discrimination, including sexual orientation.

Russia seems to be taking another 10 steps back in relation to policy on equality. But will the next two hearings pass quite as comfortably as the first? There is still time to protest…

Watch this space.