Thursday, May 24, 2007

Golden arches

Ahh, relief at last..

After just 14 hours of working in a grease pit I finally bucked up the courage to retire from the fast food industry.

I’m sure you all know the bad points in working in such a place.. But actually working there is hell on earth. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I was working on the tills, (which I specifically named in the application form as my preferred role) but nooooo.. the management chose to look at my “willing to work” quality and put me manning the fryers.. Perhaps the worst job in the whole store. First day I was given a 10 minute crash course in how to make 14 different meals. Then after 20 mins.. I was left on my own to make on average 3 meals a minute. My first day was a Saturday at 12 o’clock.. People should know that this is the busiest time for the establishment. There is no busier time of the week. And I was left alone not knowing what to do manning an entire division of food. I was responsible for about 500 peoples food that day.. Which would have been no problem if I knew how to cook the freaking things.

The fryers… holy crap.. The only way I could describe it is grase-ball. "metal" covered in 4 weeks of chip fat which is really REALLY hot. Just a heads up warning.. Its fricking disgusting, icky, unclean, unwashed, sticky and should not have been used as pig food. There was more fresh oil in ians fryer than it.=P

One of the employees told me that they hadn’t been cleaned for 4 weeks.. 4 WEEKS!! And I was cooking next to this fat-machine. No wonder people get spots in there. The old stereotype of spotty lazy dumb-ass teens working there is really accurate.. I couldn’t work there for that reason.. I did not want to be apart of that horrific stereotype which my friends made clear.

Little info.. NEVER eat there.. Ever. I’ve seen what they do, its not pretty, I’ve seen where they get the food from, I’ve seen the quality of food, and how they can be easily tainted and cross contaminated..

Oh yeah.. Big thank you out to all the people that ridiculed me about my place of work.. that’s what tipped the scales.. I probably would still have been earning money if you hadn’t been so enthusiastic about me working there. A big thank you out to :
-Jamie burgers ( ironic)
-Benjamin Connon
-Tom Hoyles
-Aneurin Creed
-Jordan Hoyles
-Lee Hoyles


There are more but I don’t want to mention them as they did not persist in the constant harrasment of my shitty job. Thanks for the support guys.
I just loved all the puns you came out with and the names you made for me. Very smart.. Putting a “Mc” in front of anything I did was hilarious. Ha ha guys.. and you thought I’d get you free stuff from there. Doubt you’d get anything much from me now guys.


As if I didn’t have enough on my plate already, you just go and make it all the worse. Yes I could have “not taken any notice” But there’s only so much you can ignore until it starts to become arrogance. It sinks in guys, and although you my have made fun of me.. At least I got of my fat arses and got a job.

Thanks for reading,


--Lew--



Current:
Mood - Apathetic
Listening to - I miss you Blink-182
Theory - Sticks and stones do break bones and so too does names.
Phrase of the moment - Reputation is everything for street cred

its not a rant.. =O

A warm "Gun-ho boo-yeah" from planet Lewis. *waves*

i have paranoia.

do you ever get the feeling that someone’s out to get you?
it may sound silly, but sometimes i get the feeling that some of the closest people to me are out to hurt me.
it may not be their fault necessarily, and sometimes it cannot be helped, but I have a feeling that something bad is gonna happen to someone close to me, and it will hurt.

Anywho =P
Today was fun XD, had an amazing time today. Was fun [attempting miserably] to revise and getting kicked outta the library XD.
Who was there…

Ross
Ryan
Sarah
Dr.
Die (he was silent)
What a group!=P


Geography exam was easy.. I hardly did any revising.. And didn’t really listen in class.. And I still answered all the questions fully and wrote about 4 pages at the end=P AS levels are easy.. dont work for them kids=P


Isn’t it funny that you can relate yourself to certain things.. I was watching a programme the other day and I could relate to it exactly. I didn’t know what to do.. I was confused what to say about it. It applied directly to my situation =S I didn’t know what to do I’ve figured that I’m going to watch the next episode to see if it plays out as I want. It’ll be a good source of advices.

Random poem:

Teenage years are confusing..
But ill be your beacon.
I’ll steady the ship
I’ll be your rock.
I’ll be your everything
If you’d let me..


Shitty day tomorrow too =
You wont believe it=P I got to finish moving the other 20 tonnes of earth tomorrow morning than after that I gotta watch only 50 mins of the rugby (Wales v Australia) then I got to go to work.. Stupid work.. 12-6. Then when I get home ill have a quick (but efficient) shower and finally go to do some babysittingK it’s Saturday!! Jeez why so much work=P lots of cash though XD finally returning home at 12 pm..

Tomorrow at 12 I have work again (12-6) and then I have free week XD. I wanna see my Bevvy.. I want to huggle her, I want to give her kisses (sorry for grossing you out/making you jealous cos im the ONLY one that can give her those XD)


Ill blog a rant soon if I’m still alive


Thanks for reading

--LEW--


Current:
Mood - paranoia
Listening to - Surfing usa!! Beach boys
Theory - From first to last must have throats made of titanium (soo much screaming.. How do they do it?) =o
Phrase of the moment - Conservative plate boundaries.. Says it all really =P

Saturday, May 19, 2007

The Pursuit of Happiness.. inevitable?

I found this old essay i wrote on my flash drive yeaterday.. i've posted it because i want to know what you think..

One of our core freedoms is the pursuit of happiness.

When you really think about it, everything we do is in the name of this pursuit. Money, power, sex all make us happy in some manner.

We think we need them even if in the long run maybe happiness isn’t what they give us. Or maybe we sacrifice short term for what we believe will be long-term happiness. Regardless, our goal in the end is happiness.

We aggressively pursue this happiness. We will do anything to attain it. It is our true currency, our societal trump card. We are capitalists to the bone but it isn’t money that really drives us it is happiness. People say that nobody ever has enough money. No matter how much you have you always want more. It is what drives our economy. The never-ending desire for more. Perhaps an even more intriguing and troubling truth is that we are just as greedy about happiness.

No matter how happy a person is or how many goals they have achieved they always find some way in which they could be happier. They always find something that can be improved. Something new to fix.

We can always be happier. We always want to be happier. How can anyone ever truly be happy when they are trying so hard to be happier? Maybe this is where we’ve gone wrong. Maybe our idea of happiness is just too capitalistic. Maybe we should be open to just being rather than being happy.In general we define most things by their negatives. You can’t have freedom without someone being captive or at least not free.

We define conformity and even our entire culture by what we consider to be deviant. Without these opposites there is no comprehension of meaning. We do not exist without someone else to show us who we are not. We even talk about how a perfect society with perfectly happy people would not be perfect because they don’t know what they have. Without sadness there would be no happiness. Wouldn’t it make sense that a person who knows sadness the best would also be able to know happiness the best?

So many people do their best to avoid the bad. It would seem that these people would be shortchanging themselves when it came to experiencing the good. Or even worse, what if avoiding the bad is the same as avoiding the good. That inner conflict between the good and the bad within yourself, the happy and the sad, could be necessary to feeling. At any given moment maybe that sadness you find is what makes you happy. Maybe that is the real reason we spend so much time finding something to improve is because without something wrong we don’t feel right.At the same time my greatest moments of happiness that I can remember are all moments of feeling content. Nothing sexy there. Just content.

Or apathetic. Maybe both. Content to the point of apathy? Absolutely. Where there are no desires left but to remain in the moment. It passes as all moments must. But at that moment there doesn’t appear to be sadness. Perhaps it is those moments in which I truly embrace the sadness though. The sadness that the moment must end, the sad beauty of desiring nothing, the wish that the world was so simple.

To want nothing, even more happiness, may be what it is to be truly happy. Except how do you want to want nothing? How do you find a place that you never want to leave? Except who would want to stay forever? I have no answers. Juat the feeling that there is something out there .. something in the dark.. something i want to grab hold of and never let go.. what that thing is.. i dont know.

Rant #2

Home on (study) leave. Now usually i would do something like download music off the internet illegally =P but fricking tiscali are ripping me off cos im a "heavy user" (ill leave that to another rant)

but what do i do instead.. i look on th box =] i know daytime tv is shit.. but today was unbelievable..
-Homes under the hammer
-to buy or not to buy
-House doctor

if you havent seen this trailer trash tv yet.. i admire you. yo u are the lucky survivors. i had the pleasure of wasting about 3 hours of my life vegetating on my leather soafa with a packet of crisps and a bottle of becks.. i was expecting some good old tv.. NOOOO.. i get absolute shite!

but thats not what i want to rant about.. :@ i was watching an advert for colgate toothpaste.. this annoyed the hell out of me!

How can something be both new and improved?!?! Doesn't matter which, it's just for the purposes of explanation.Washing powder, cleans, whitens and freshens better than any other washing powder on the market. The packaging looks good, the advertisments are fun. Sales are up, the company is happy, and the people washing the clothes are happy. (With the results that is, I've yet to meet anyone who actually enjoys doing the washing)

Some time after the original is launched, a 'new and improved' version is launched. A what???

Hang on, back up a minute..... If it's new, then it's a first, it's unique. If that's the case, how can it also be improved? Ahhh they must mean because the packaging is different, therefore new packaging, or the dosage of one chemical has been increased so it's a new dosage.

And what about the claims that it get's your whites whiter than white. Ummm well, white is white, surely if you make something whiter than white then it is no longer white, but a totally different colour?

If the old original product got your clothes whiter than white then how can the new and improved version claim the same thing, surely that would cancel out the original claim..
If the original product was so good, why do we need a 'new and improved' version?? Now I'm getting myself confused. Oh wait, no I'm not, they are.Don't claim it's new and improved.. Tell me that it's either a new formula, or an improved one. I think it's lying otherwise, and I hate that.

had to get the cruddy advertising off my chest..

thank you it helped=]

--LEW--

15 things I hate most currently


1. Tailgaters
2. 4X4s
3. People in the media saying '..and here's a sneak preview.' it's not a sneak preview if everybody knows about it.
4. The price of houses
5. The price of petrol
6. Tony Blair's farewell
7. People banging on about Prince Harry not going to Iraq.
8. Reality TV stars
9. Celebrity come dancing and singing on ice whilst learning to play an instrument on a horse crap TV shows.
10. Paris 'for the love of god please somebody just erase her' Hilton
11. Increasingly, nanny state laws
12. The Daily Mail
13. Footballers wives
14. Size zero
15. The Express newspaper and the Daily Mail

... and many more!

Rant #1

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table...everywhere. Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be...quite, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see . . . our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be a automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands.
- Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for the public services..
- small apartments are housing 5 families
- you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor (damn NHS!!)
- Classrooms are behind the national quota because we have Polish immigrants children speaking polish!.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press “one” to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than “Old Glory” are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

..Maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

Exams

pointless as they are (after reading sams blog=P) i have AS examinations in oohh.. lets see 24 hours.

but i am confused, i do not get worried in an exam hall, or nervous.. i dont panic. At the samt time i do not revise.

i highly reccoment the "LEARN BY LISTENING" technique. for some of you new to this-technique here is a crash corse in it:
-go to school/ college every day
-suck up majorly to the teachers/lecturers
-listen as they teach you
-make leaning interesting by messing around in classes, youll remember stuff easier.

no matter what these bollocks haired, underpaid, under qualified teachers say, listen to it.. and take it for fact.

it got me through my GCSE's:
English - A/A
Maths - B
French - C
Science -A/A
IT - A*
D+T - A*
Geography -A*

i do not think that my revision technique quite provides for the languages dept. or mmaybe that was just my teacher mrs harris (i'll let you make your own judgements on her, and would like to hear them too)

I'm hoping that this technique will work again at AS level. there is a lot more things to remember.. ie LAW: fricking case law... nothing could be more annoying and heder to learn..

i can tell your all crying out to hear what case law is exactly..so

Wikipedia defines case law as:

"Case law (also known as precedential law, decisional law or jurisprudence) is the body of judge-made law and legal decisions that interprets prior case law, statutes and other legal authority -- including doctrinal writings by legal scholars such as the Corpus Juris Secundum, Halsbury's Laws of England. The term "common law" is also often used in common law to mean case law."

Lewis's more accurate definition:

"pointless"


basically what you have to do is remember past law cases ie "R v ingelbaum and steen" and them memorise what the case was about.. and how it effected english law and why its an important case. a tedious task of looking throughold law papers to find them.. highlight them.. and them memorise. on average 150 cases have to be memorised on each paper, each in context as when they were memorised.

but i still love law XD =S

PSYCHOLOGY EXAM COUNTDOWN -- 23:hours and 34 minutes

enough of that.. i have written enough for you now to bore yourself with.

enjoyed that eh?=P


--Lew--

WORK

People.. i have a job...

thats ALL you need to know


--LEW--

Friday, May 18, 2007

Jokes over....

yes it has begun. the exams..

im currently studying law, geography, psychology and government and politics all at AS level, in Gorseinon college.

and what a college it is...

population - 309,670,087
area - 10,352 acres
rooms - 4,665
chavs - 5
lecturers - 5,000
friends - uncounted


now the end of my forst year is approaching fast.. all i have now is my exams.=

there are some grat people at college=P (steeds!!! nick, natalie, anthony, rhian, jamie, bulb, mark, steph) but i have successfully managed to keep in contact with all my old friends (ross, figgins, douggie, bale, paddy, ryan, tristan, die.. ) and if your one of the lucky ones who hang around with our awsomest of groups.. then *hi5 + special handshake*

i have a bad feeling about next year..

i cant help that our group will split apart.. i have a feeling that certin people will dissapear, and lost from daily contact..

but i will welcom in the new=]
Mattman- the ninja
The Bev
the awesome sam
tom
Jamie bugrers
rachel- jamies missus
KING GRAHAM
Jonny Hawkins
rachel Capp
Jonny Harris
basically all the starbucks crew

and loads of others=]

i have to admit, i do think next year will be AMAZING, mainly cos of all the AMAZING people that are coming to college..

most of all i will like it cos of my bevvy coming to college.. spending those free hours in the common room having a coffee.. i can see it happening now=]

unfinished!!!!