So you've got your eye on someone special...

Hope you all had a great Easter and are looking forward to your final term of school, college or university.

Moving on, today is just a quick word on "drawing" or "wooing" a girl you like. As I always say I know practically nothing about relationships or how the minds of females work but yeah this is just my take on it.

Let's start from the beginning. You're about 13 and you've just discovered "sex" not only this but you've discovered that it is this act that allowed you to exist. You've probably just got past the stage of laughing every time you hear the word and suddenly you're seeing girls in a completely different way. I'm not going to go into how puberty works because I imagine most of you know the basics. However it is puberty that kind of sets the foundations of your sexual endeavors.

Anywho, you know in the movies when an awkward mostly nerdy kind of guy likes a girl and 9 times out of 10 he ends up getting the girl despite the girl feeling no attraction or affection to him at the beginning of the movie. This whole concept I think is pretty unbelievable if you ask me. Can you really get a girl to like you and if so, how?

If you like someone and you speak to friends or family about them I can almost guarantee that they'll push you to ask her out having no  prior knowledge of the existing relationship you have with said girl. You could have stolen her crayon when you were in primary school. You could have kicked her cat over a fence or never had any contact with her whatsoever.

Chances are you're probably to much of a wuss to do anything about it. Besides surely if this girl doesn't like you can you really make her like you? I think most good relationships develop naturally rather than ones fueled by lust and physical attraction. Remember this ain't a film. Only because you're a "good guy" doesn't mean you're going to end up with the girl.

Moreover we all know physical attraction plays a huge part in "getting a girl". If she's not physically attracted to you, sorry but what can you do? This doesn't mean your ugly, you might be, but not necessarily. Just simply you're not her type so no matter how much you like her, sorry it's unlikely she won't go for you. You'll just have to find a nice space in the friend zone.

Speaking of the friend zone if you want to be more than friends that walk into it. I know there are times where you don't realise you like someone until after your friends with them but for the cases where you have no relationship with them I think you need to make your intentions known pretty early. Girls will automatically put you in the friend zone unless you give them a reason not to. But I guess the most you can do is just be yourself. You want them to like you for you don't you? Don't be the person you think they want.

It's all very complicated and the whole thing is just mind games really. Your each trying to guess what the others thinking and their intentions. Don't put yourself on the line but also don't be coy about the situation. You don't want her to think that you run some undercover drug smuggling operation nor do you want her knowing that you possess undying love for her.

I think I kind of went off topic with this. But even though I spoke about boys getting girls I guess it could happen vice versa but we all know that girls are much more secretive about it than boys right?

... having said all this though after getting to know the girl you could learn she's a total bitch.

So guys it's story time... and today's story is about tramps, but one tramp in particular!

For you guys that don't know I reside in a little sea-side town called Bournemouth and I mean it's great but the amount of tramps. You know how people say we should respect tramps. Why? What have they ever done for me? And now because of this one experience I respect them even less... not that I respected them that much to begin with.

Very rarely do I take sympathy on the homeless, not because I'm a heartless person but more to do with I rarely carry money and if I do have money I can't be asked to stop and retrieve my brick of a wallet that is stuck in my skinny jeans. Nevertheless sometimes I'm in a good mood and will offer my hard earned cash. But oh boy is that going to stop. I swear I was happy on the wrong day.

So there I was, strutting my stuff down the street, quite proud with the shop I had just done at ASDA and I was looking forward to just getting back to my room and seeing bae (Netflix). I'm like 200 metres away and I can practically hear Francis Underwood calling my name. Then I see this rough guy at the corner of my eye. And you know them ones when you just know someones going to approach you so you do everything in your power to avoid that from happening. But me being the idiot I am thought he'd be a hero and carry all 7 bags of shopping on my ones, so it's safe to say I wasn't going anywhere fast. This was the ensuing conversation. Well how I remember it anyway I may be paraphrasing...

Tramp: Excuse me boss...

Me: Yes

Tramp: How you doing? I need money for the bus but I'm 80p short could you lend it to me?

Me: Yeah alright.

At this point I was fearing for my wallet because I had a bunch of bags on me, he could have taken it and ducked. So I get out my wallet and look through my change when he proceeds to say. Now I remember this bit clearly.

Tramp: If you've got a nugget in there that would be great?

So now I'm thinking, is this guy trying to rob my chicken nuggets aswell. Cos he don't know that nothing comes between me and some good chicken nuggets. But then I realised "Oh that must be slang for a £1"

So me still fearing for my wallets safety gave him the pound without even thinking... cos I'm a moron basically.

So there he is happy as Larry, so grateful for the whole pound I gave him and you know what I felt quite good inside. Don't get it twisted I wasn't going to becomes some modern day Robin Hood but I was starting to think maybe I wasn't as heartless as I thought.

So he left, probably to get some drugs or some ish and I carry on walking back to my digs and start to realise. "Hold on, he just robbed me". How is a tramp gonna upsell me? I acted like the guy had a knife to my throat. That pound could have got me one whole item from poundland. THE GUY DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR A POUND. How's a tramp going to negotiate his beg money. It's called "beg" money for a reason. You can;t be making demands who do you think you are. So there's me contemplating life after just being robbed but kinda still feeling good because the guy was so grateful.

Lets fast forward a few weeks...

So a few weeks have past and I've pretty much forgotten about this guy think I was never gonna see him again. In my room getting a bit hungry, Tesco is across the road so I thought let me go and get some munch. So I go out looking homeless myself just about to enter the sanctuary that is Tesco when guess who approaches me. THE SAME TRAMP. This time saying "I'm a Londoner I just need 80p for the train." When a few things went through my mind.

If you're a Londoner why are you in Bournemouth?

If you can't afford to get back how the hell did you get here?

and...
WHY THE HELL DO YOU ALWAYS WANT 80P SPECIFICALLY?

So obviously now I know this guy is just full of gas. So me, knowing I have plenty of money in my pocket say "no, I have no change". And as polite tramps normally say "Oh okay thanks anyway" or something along those lines... this guy proceeds to argue with me. THIS GUY TRIED TO TELL ME I HAD MONEY. WTF? How can YOU tell me that I have money? Are you okay? If I say I have no money, I have no money. Whether I actually do is besides the point because the results the same. Then he had the audacity to call me a liar... HA! Are you hearing this? A liar aswell. A guy who has apparently been living off 80p rations in Bournemouth for a good couple of months but is from London and needs just 80p to afford a ticket back. I can't believe I even entertained the guy. Saying that I was paying by card and all sorts... what was I thinking?

If you're homeless you're supposed to be humble man, you can't be interrogating people for money... I only came out for a £3 meal deal.

Moral of the story is, if you live in Bournemouth and someone asks you for 80p keep your money in your pocket and go buy yourself a lollipop.




HELLO STONEHENGE!
If you know where that's from, good on you! To be honest I don't even know why I started with that. Anyway back to the matter at hand and actually this is a very serious matter so let me see those serious faces. No, more serious than that... there you go!

So for those of you that don't know my name is Byran, hello! Nice to meet ya. Some of you may have read that as Bryan, but no, it's Byran. See the difference... Byran vs Bryan. And that's just one of the annoying mistakes people make. No offence to anyone called "Bryan" but as you can imagine I despise that name. Anyway yeah my name isn't very common well the name Byron spelt with an O is semi common but I bet you will never meet someone else who spells it the same way I do. I don't know what the hell my parents were thinking which leads me on to my first problem.

PROBLEM 1: My name is spelt with an A not an O. And as I said I know the typical way of spelling it is with an O so I can let people off with this. If you accidentally spell it with an O then I have no problems with that it just gets a bit annoying correcting people all the time. Interchanging Os and As doesn't change the way my name is pronounced which leads me on to problem number deux.

PROBLEM 2: This is where I start to get annoyed. My name is Byran not Bryan. You can clearly see the Y comes before the R so why have you decided to switch it? You don't get to pick and choose what way round the letters go. Who do you think you are? Please just read the name right. I mean I know they're very very similar but surely you can see that Byran isn't the same as Bryan just at a quick glance.

PROBLEM 3: I've told you my name is Byran, you know my name is Byran, SO WHY ON EARTH DO YOU STILL SPELL IT AS BRYAN? People have actually said "Oh I thought it was spelt "Bryan" but you pronounce it as "Byran". What sense does that make? Someone please tell me. Why would you decide to pronounce the "y" before the "r" when the name is telling you different? Jheeeeeze.

PROBLEM 4: This one I don't get at all. It's only happened a couple of times. People spelling my name as "Bryon". WHO EVEN SPELLS "Bryan" like that. If you're going to call me by the wrong name at least spell it right. You've literally just mixed "Byron" and "Bryan" together and ended up with some hybrid name that's even uglier than my own.

PROBLEM 5: Hearing my name. Literally the worst thing ever. Actually worse than that, I hate saying my name. It leaves a weird taste in my mouth and I've actually come to realise that I can't even say my own name right. People often hear it as "Barren". No guys I'm not Barren.

PROBLEM 6: Autocorrect. Bloody autocorrect. When will you learn?

PROBLEM 7: Not being able to have the luxury of a personalised item. You know when you go to those souvenir stores and they have all the personalised crap with names on it and you spend hours looking for your name. Well imagine how I feel. I can't even enjoy the thrill of searching for my name because I know it won't be there... *sigh*. However I still look, hoping that one day a miracle will happen and my name will grace a pathetic keyring.

PROBLEM 8: People actually telling me that I've spelt my own name wrong. So I'll fill out a form or some ish. And the person will come back to me calling me "Bryan". This actually happened to me. And they told me that it was spelt like that on what ever formed I filled out. How are you going to tell me that I've spelt my own name wrong? And also after I've told someone they've spelt it wrong they'll proceed to ask me "Are you sure?" AM I SURE? I think I'm done with humans...

Mum, Dad, why didn't you just call me Bob?

And no it's not because I'm boring.

So in case you didn't know, yeah I don't drink. It's not a case of I used to drink but now have stopped I've just never really "drunk" before. Yes I have tasted alcohol, mainly because of church, but yeah these days I just refrain from drinking it all together.

A lot of people are amazed when I tell them I don't drink especially because I'm at uni and it is often followed up with the question "Well why don't you drink?". And my answer is just normally "I just don't". Which is pretty perfect to be honest. So this is me trying to delve into the mystery of my tee-totaller status.

First of all I can safely say that alcohol is just disgusting. Even if i wanted to get drunk, I don't think I could because alcohol is just horrific. Why would I drink something I don't like hey? So yeah that's pretty much the end of point 1.

Point 2. The effects... and not just the fact it makes you drunk. Also the health implications it has. Destroys your liver, high blood pressure, increased risk of cancers and heart attacks and the list goes on. I mean how different is it too smoking really. It's not something I really want to put my body through. And I know you can drink in moderation but I have gone so long without drinking, why do I need to start now.

And then there's the whole getting drunk. I don't know why but people enjoy getting drunk. I mean like we are who we are and if you enjoy it then no one can judge. I'm just saying I don't really understand it. And because I work at a club I've just gone even more off alcohol, if that was possible, because of the first hand experiences I've had with drunks. The vomiting, the falling over, the just making a total idiot of yourself. Not really a position I would want to be in and to be honest I think I'd make a pretty annoying drunk. Nah not about that life. I'll stick to my J2O.

Then there's the aftermath. THE HANGOVER. Which people usually accompany with "I'm never drinking again" er... yes you are.

I in no way condemn people who drink or try and impose these views onto others these are just my personal reasons. And believe me there have been times when I wish I did drink mainly due to the social benefits but you don't need alcohol to have a good time... right?

At least this means that if you ever do go out with me you'll always have someone to look after you. Did I mention I cleaned sick out of one of my friends hair? And the thanks I get is being totally blocked out of her life... girls eh? Oh wait what were talking about again?

So a lot of you guys may be at uni or planning on going to uni... or still thinking about it OR don't want to go to uni at all. Well for all of you guys that have maybe looked online about life at uni or been to talks about surviving at uni you have probably heard a lot of hints and advice that will help you live that university life successfully.

BUT did you know that most of these tips are complete and utter trash. I know what you're thinking... "who does this guy think he is, telling me that everything I've learnt is nonsense". I'm a 3rd year student so actually know about the realities of university life. So let's begin.

Budget - LOL what does that even mean? I'm not saying you shouldn't budget. But you're going to budget anyway surely. You don't have do all these calculations and set yourself an amount of money to spend every week. Because chances are you won't keep to it. If you're not a complete moron, which you shouldn't be seeing as you're at uni, you're going to know if your rich and broke and keep this in your mind when making purchases. Just check that bank balance once in a while and you'll be fine. I'm not exactly the richest guy. But I have never found myself having money troubles at uni. Three words ASDA smart price.

Go to every lecture - If you've been to every single lecture please step forward.

Eat properly - I "cook" healthy wholesome meals very little. Am I dead?

Sleep - What is sleep? All these theories about the minimum amount of sleep you need I've found is highly inaccurate. Well I guess it depends on the individual. Obviously it's best to get as much sleep as possible but there will be some days when you get very sleep. When I have lectures i literally have 5/6 hours sleep. I still beat my alarm and I wake up fresh as a flippin' Daisy. But hey that's just me, just don't feel like you need a certain amount of sleep to be able to function. You can always catch up on the weekends.

Go home once in a while - LOL. If you're home sick the worst thing to do is to go home to be honest. The best thing to do is to give your parents that cheeky phone call tell them you're alive and get to partying. You have all of Christmas and Easters and Reading weeks to be home.

Start assignments early - To be honest with you I believe in this one... I just never do it. The mindset I have is that I know I'm not going to miss the deadline and I'm going to have to do the work sometime so right now I'm just going to chill. Does mean the work could suffer though.

When going into 2nd year find a house early - NO. DON'T do that. For 2 reasons. 1) Houses come on to the market at around February and March most of the time some of the better houses. You don't want to live in some average house because you couldn't wait a month or so. 2) How do you know who you want to live with. Yeah these people may seem like your friends now but after you sort your house out 2 months down the line you're going to think "oh this guy isn't my friend, in fact he's a total arsehole". Yeah exactly.

Look for second hand text books - The only reason why I debunk this is because I haven't bought a single textbook for all the time I've been here. Before i came they were like "get these books". I bought them, have I used them, no and I'm not doing too bad in uni to be honest. GOOGLE SCHOLAR FTW. Or you can use that building that allows you to borrow books.

There just a few tips that I feel are very wishy washy. Because to be honest there is no one experience at university. We as individuals are going to go through university in so many different ways therefore we're going to cope in different ways. And although these tips may be like "the best" and most efficient way of surviving chances are you ain't going to stick to them mainly because you're a human being.

I do have a tip of my own though in terms of assignments. For you freshers. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SOURCE... BUT it does use sources. These sources can be found at the bottom of the page which are actual sources which you can use and is actually very helpful. That's how I get a load of my source material anyway. We all remember the secondary school days where we rinsed that copy and paste button. Yeah get out of that habit and get out of it now. Wikipedia is very good at explaining what you need to know and then when you need an academic reading Wikipedia most of the time have used loads. So yeah just a cheeky tip.

So yeah uni... have fun!

So, how are things? Great? Good.

Sorry that I haven't been posting a lot lately, I would say it's because I've been busy, but that would be a big fat lie. The truth is... I'm just lazy. But I'll make it up to you I swear. That's if you care... hey that rhymed. Anyway...

Today, I want to talk about that "feeling" I don't know what it's called but I'm sure most of us have had it. As some of you may not I recently reached the quarter finals of a script competition and apparently was in the top 20% of 1,500 scripts. So imagine if that happened to you... how would you feel knowing that someone out there thought your script was worthy of being in that top 20%. THAT FEELING. And it feels good right.

But this feeling can come in all different shapes and sizes. As humans we crave that reassurance that we're not a total screw up and that what we do is not only appreciated but is good. When you get a new job that fact that you beat how many other people to it is a great feeling. A lot of it comes from knowing that at some moment in time someone was actively thinking about you and ultimately praising you. And that's just one of the best things ever. Especially if it's something personal, like something wrote or a piece of art you created.

When we're younger we think about the future and we say we want to be astronauts or singers or actors but the reality is that very few of us will achieve these dreams. Not because we're incapable but because life just takes us on a different path. But when you eventually do achieve that dream the feeling must be amazing. And all these job interviews and competitions are just a taster of what achieving that dream will feel like as you will know you're one step closer.

A lot of this is down to what others think of you or your work. And the reality is that some point down the line you're going to have to please someone that is higher up the food chain than you. Someone with experience and knowledge which only makes the feeling that much better. They know what they're talking about and they see something in you that will allow you to achieve whatever it is you're trying to achieve.

When you have these feelings you just know that you're doing something right and life looks just a little bit brighter. So savour those feelings and cherish them, as their hard to come by and you won't have many in your life time but when you do, you'll never forget them.

Hope that made sense...

Before I start, HAPPY NEW YEAR! Hope you all had a great Christmas and have some serious plans to make 2015 a good year.

Apologies for not posting for a while, I've been fairly busy. 10,000 word dissertation, work... personal stuff. But I thought I'll kick off 2015 with a somewhat "deep" post. The subject being... TIME.

If you think about time it's quite scary. You're sitting here reading this but as you're reading this time is just ticking away. Time is precious, use it wisely.

You remember the days when you were younger and a week seemed like such a long time. But now a week is sooooo short. You wake up it's Monday and before you know it it's Sunday evening and you're worrying about school or work the next morning.

We're all on borrowed time, our time is running out. For every day you live your time is coming forever closer. Whether it be in 50 years or 50 minutes, it's coming and will catch up with you eventually, there's no escaping it. I've been thinking about the past a lot lately which I'm sure most of us do but seriously what's the point? You can't change the past. Start focusing on what you can change, you future. And one day your future will be your past and you'll look back on it knowing you did everything you could to make it great.

We all know the saying "live every day like it was your last". Maybe we don't have too live it necessarily to that extent but "carpe diem". Why do tomorrow what you can do today. Every day poses an opportunity, think about the countless opportunities have passed you by. You could've missed something truly amazing! It's time to stop being a human being and start being a human doing... if that made sense. You like that boy/girl, go tell them. You been thinking about painting a picture or shooting a film, go out there and make it happen. "Life is short" no it's not, life is long. The longest thing you'll ever do in fact. And in this long life we have infinite opportunities to make it what we want. You're not here to simply exist and let life pass you by. Do something positive, something creative. Leave your mark so you'll be remembered for the right reasons.

I hope this has inspired you to at least do something. At the end of the day we're all just people and there's nothing stopping you from being truly great.