Sunday 4 December 2011

Christmas.

Why hello December, nice to see you and all the ridiculous Christmas hype you bring.
Most people spend this month doing two things, rushing around for Christmas shopping and spreading fake joy.
December's my grumpiest month of the year, there are quite a few reasons for this. The first is probably hereditary, my Mother doesn't like December or Christmas either, so being brought up by someone who has a massive dislike for Christmas joy probably doesn't help. There are far too many reasons to stress. I have exams coming up at the start of January, Christmas shopping to sort out, and just general eurghness (yeah, I know that's not a word...). Living in England also means that December is bloomin' freezin'. something that my poor African body STILL cannot cope with and so I spend most of the time hibernating or covered in warm things. I also dislike the fake Christmas joy that comes. The rest of the year, it's like I'm just a spot on the forehead of society, December rolls around and everyone wants to be best friends. It just doesn't really make sense to me...

I figured that I don't go out much, I only realised last night that the Christmas lights have gone up and have been turned on in town...

Perhaps I should stop being a scrouge, but it's hard to break a life time tradition.

Also, I'm upset because I don't have an advent calender.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Rargh.

Oh, erm, hello there.

I'm not going to acknowledge the fact that I haven't blogged in a while and just blog....

So, there are a few major things that have happened in my life. I recently turned 18, which is quite the milestone, I've managed to survive a whole 18 years without dying or being seriously injured. This is something I spent ages looking forward to, and then when it came 'round it was kind of 'meh'. This may have been influenced by the fact that I don't currently have any ID. My passport was sent off to get my provisional, and over month later, it still hasn't come...
Which brings me to my next point, I've moved house! It's sort of a complicated issue in the fact we still own the old house and only moved out because my stepdad's house is bigger... Okay, that isn't actually that complicated but yeah...
Since we moved I've started this annoying habit of listing good things and bad things about moving. The bad things are generally the fact that the house is out of the way from everything, there's wallpaper on every wall, and carpets on practically every floor. The good thing's are that I finally have my own space. I no longer share a room, I managed to nag getting both the TV and the computer from the old house in my room, and I have a swivel chair with wheels so I never have to walk around my room again!
Effectively this means two things, the first is that I shall probably be blogging more, and the second is I got a pay rise which means that my list will be easier to complete!

Just thought I'd let you all you know.

Monday 19 September 2011

Drunken women.

On Saturday I night I went out with family, to go and have dinner with a family friend. On the way we passed this rather drunken woman and because it looked as if she was trying to get into this car we stopped to check she was okay. Her reply was that she'd never been so drunk in her life. So, my stepdad who was talking out the car to asked where she lives, she answered that she lives 'round the corner and asked for a lift. Now, not only was the car full, but this lady looked as if she was at the point of drunkenly throwing up, and so he said no, but turned 'round and said 'Jeff'll walk you home though' to which I get out the car, take the keys off this lady so she doesn't scratch our car and hold her up. So with this drunken, cider stinking woman slumped onto my side. She kept repeating three things over and over again. These being that she was so sorreh, that she was so embarrassed and that she'd never drunk so much in her life, this was often followed by her telling me that she'd never drink again. 
Despite the fact that she repeated those, I couldn't help but feel as if she was chatting me up, she enquired as to which football team I supported, about whether it was my Dad in the car, and then asked me if it was my Mum or my girlfriend in the car. Not only was she asking such odd questions, but her hand kept on slipping from my shoulder to my arse. Not only that but when we got to her drive she had to go over to our car (which was following slowly behind) and say thank you to my parents, telling them that they have a really nice son and that she wouldn't mind taking me home. I was quite worried at this point. I finally get her to her door and unlock it, give her her keys and put her through it. She then turns around and goes in to full on kiss me. Now me being extremely worried at this point, turn and end up being kissed on the cheek by this drunken lady.

I got back into the car and complained about cheek smelling of cider.

It really sucks to be a good guy.

Thursday 15 September 2011

Tweets, Books, Music.

So this is the part of general rambles...

As you guys may have noticed, I have twitter! I'm still slightly confused by the whole prospect, but if you guys want any source of insight as to which may (or may not) be in my blogs, feel free to follow me. Though, don't feel as if I'm telling you to. That would be weird and dictator-ish of me.

I'm reading a new book (for those that are interested), it's called The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber and is quite interesting. It's about the finding of a secret manuscript which leads to a lost play of Shakespeare and involves an Intellectual Property Lawyer being chased by the Mob. For those who've read the first part of today's blog posting and know of my venturing to Birmingham, I need to make sure to check where bookshop are before I travel. I arrived early and ended up wondering around for half an hour hoping to run into a bookshop, unfortunately I did not and ended up calling random people in my contacts list (I'm sure the were grateful) and wondering around HMV looking at CD's I wish I had the money to splash out on.

Music wise, my taste has been described as very Indie. Mainly because most of my friends haven't a clue as to who the artist are that I listen to, and because I generally detest music that ends up in the charts. I had an interesting conversation with someone about the difference between new and old Indie and how I listen to both. I'm seeing The Wombats in a week today! You guys might not have a clue who they are (I suggest you have a listen if you don't) but it's something I'm really excited about and I just thought I'd share with you. Also, a girl with brilliant music taste is www.onegirlandheripod.com, just saying.

I probably could've stuck this at the end of the last post, but in the words of Laura Marling (another brilliant artist), 'why should I please those, that will never be pleased?'

Laters

School, whore, sale.

Hello all.
I always seem to have trouble starting blog posts, introductions are always unpredictable in everything. Either they go smashingly well, or they suck mahoosively (good use of the English language there).

Today's blog comes in two parts, general life stuffs, which you may or not care about at all, and just general 'non-life' stuffs which I just wanted to express a little.

I started sixth form last week, this being my second year, but having failed so badly last year, I'm resitting my first year. Joy. As it's relevant, I've taken Physics, History and Art (Last year was the same but Maths in the place of Art). I spent the first week borrowing my friends bag because I was disorganised and didn't buy a bag until the very last minute, which I ordered it online. Yay Jeff! -hint sarcasm-
History, isn't as interesting when you're just relearning it. I just end up trying to answer the questions to have my History teacher ignoring me, and telling the guy sat next to me all the answers... It's dull. Though, to try and make sure I'm on top of everything and get as high as possible grade this year, I spent the weekend before my history lessons studying and making notes from, the notes I made last year..
Physics, I'm thankful I'm not the only one resitting it from last year. I know NONE of the new people, and spending the year secluded wouldn't have been very fun. On that note, Physics is fun. It's interesting and we always end up doing something stupid. Last lesson we raced to make circuits for a chocolate bar, I of course, didn't get one...
Art. I am so indecisive. The topic for Art is nature, and so we're drawing/painting/sculpting animals, and I have no clue as to which animal to sculpt. I want something interesting, but not something to hard, bearing in mind, we're using clay, which isn't exactly my forte. I'm doing a  Leopard out of watercolour though, so that should turn out all right...

Often I am regarded as a bit of a 'slag' by my closest of friends, whom (when with someone) have long lasting relationships (say minimum of about a year?) whilst the longest I've had has been 10 months, and the rest only last about 3 and a half months. What's worse is in the past there has been a lot of them.

It's my sailing club's 125th birthday on the 24th September (a week on Sunday) and my Mother's organising it. When I was down there on Sunday, a man who had sailed there when he was just a boy (he knew my stepdad as a result) came to hand back a trophy that he'd had stored in his loft for the good part of 25 years and within 5 minutes my Mum had invited him and was acquiring ticket money from him. You guys probably couldn't care less, but it just made me smile that she'd managed to sell it to him that quick.

[editedly added on] Being silly, I made a list and completely skipped a huge section of life stuff that I wanted to tell you about. On Tuesday I went to Birmingham as the girlfriend had an interview there for something (I'm still not entirely sure what it's about... whoops) and so we had a sort of short afternoon date type thing. Whilst waiting on the platform for the train I was greeted by this adorable little lady, we exchanged pleasantries and then I got out my rubiks cube to which she rambled on about it and how long it was until the last time she'd seen one and if I could do it or not, to which I did (I being a total show off). Speaking of old ladies, the first thing which we did was she HAD to buy these doughnuts from some place that I'd never heard of before, so we bought them and when leaving Bullring (the big shopping centre) I may have attacked some old lady (accidentally!) with these doughnuts. It was followed by a lot of apologies (apparently sorries isn't a word.. and me being given the dirtiest look. Whoops. I also almost stole her doughnuts when leaving to go home, pity she noticed...

End of part one of today's blog, on to the less lifey stuff now .

Thursday 1 September 2011

I don't like TGIFriday's.

Okay, I have been way too busy. I always have things to write and tell you about, but I never seem to have a chance to sit down and actually write! It's pretty darn frustrating!
I'll work my way backwards, and start about today, and how I am no longer a TGIFriday's virgin, but I don't like it...
The food was way too overpriced! I am a bit of a cheapskate, but I really didn't want to pay that much for what I got. I didn't really like the food, I mean it was good, but it was just all right. I would've paid far less for the same thing anywhere else...
I really didn't like the waiters. The guy who served us, was very up in our faces, he said 'yeah?' after EVERYTHING. I just wanted to slap him.

I've been to the movies. I never go to the movies. The first one I went to see, was The Smurfs movie. The Smurfs was a good film though, it takes the piss out of a lot of other movies though .

On Saturday, I also went to go see One Day, which is really good. It's kind of like Titanic though. It's all right, up to the point of something massive happens (like the Titanic sinking) and the it's an amazing film. I would recommend going and seeing it.
I had to catch a train to go see them. So, I went and jumped on a train to go home (which I had to wait half an hour for). I was just wearing a long sleeved t-shirt as the day before it didn't stop raining, and it looked sunny that morning, and so I thought 'why not?'. Well, I also forgot that, I'm living in England. I got off the train, to which it started POURING it down. My house is a half an hour walk from the train station... Though, because I'd see her, I must have looked like an idiot, smiling whilst walking soaking wet in the rain...

Something else I should tell you about, I acquired a rubiks last week, and can all ready do it off by heart! Doing it in under a minute is going to be hard though, seeing as I can only barely do it in under 3!

I really do need to catch up on everything else, but life is too hectic at the moment, and so, it comes first... Sorry guys!

Hopefully, I'll write again soon!

Thursday 11 August 2011

I've been a busy man...

As I may have informed you guys, I was away camping last week, in a field, with approximately a thousand 11-18 year olds. Why you ask? I was at a little village by the name of Walsingham (Near Norfolk), for a shin dig known as the Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage.
It was a fantastic week! It was my fifth year going, and I can say they just get better! I always meet the most amazing people, do some amazing things, and of course, increase my faith so much more. Just before you go 'WOAH, this dude's shoving religion in ma face!' I'm not, I just thought I'd share some of my experience...

First of all, I was invited to work the camera for filming the services, which was great fun, took A LOT of concentrating, and was just a helpful learning curve.

Wielding scarily expensive equipment...
The only sad part about it, was I didn't get to feel the emotion of the services, as I was too busy concentrating on making sure I got the perfect shot...
 My group went swimming in the rain, my friend made me a balloon Giraffe, which was named Geoff, and I lost playing football, in which my team scored one goal during the whole entire tournament...

The week before, I got to help out at the kids camp at my sailing club, which was great but scary. Scary, because just the year before, I was one of the kids, running around, and generally being a nuisance, but now I was one of the people in charge, telling children off for the rules I'd broken countless times in previous years, and wierdly, being bossy to people I hang around with and consider my friends... It was great though, because I got to stay up and discover what the adults talked about after we went to bed, saw how much they drink, and got participate in conversations which I'd never thought I'd be part of.

You may have heard of the riots happening at the moment in England, the closest of which to me is in Nottingham (about half an hour on the bus...) and the actual closest thing that's happened, is a garden centre was set on fire about a mile from me.. So, obviously, it's barely effected me, but there does seem to be a lot of police officers, everywhere.

I've watched two movies in the past week;
Captain America, which was great, very action packed and mostly  sticks to the comics. I can't wait for The Avengers movie and the new Spiderman movie next year!
Horrible Bosses, is hilarious,  I've never laughed so much at a movie in a very, very long time!
Both, I recommend you guys go see.

Small announcement; I'm probably only going to be blogging at a minimum of once a month, unless something interesting happens. Please don't dislike me for it...

I have a load of Origami to catch up on, and will probably translate something interesting to French so it doesn't look like I'm slacking too much., so there probably will be another blog this month containing those...

Sunday 24 July 2011

Blood glorious blood!

So, as you've probably noticed, I haven't blogged in a while, and I don't really have an excuse but for last week...
So, last week I was in the Isle of Wight, Cowes to be precise, for the joys of Cowes Classic Regatta for what I thought was going to be great.
It wasn't. I didn't get to crew on the yacht I did last year due to my late coming (I arrived on Wednesday evening, I'll explain that later...) and so had nothing to do, in fact, I only got to go on a yacht once for the parade on the Sunday. So, I spent the week as bored as a plank of wood.
On the way home, going a long the motorway, my little brother announces he really needs a wee, to which it's replied that the next services isn't for 15 minutes, he'll have to wait. So, he waits, for 10 minutes, which he decides that he might not make it and acquires a bottle.
However, he doesn't pee in the bottle. For 5 minutes he sat, willy in bottle, until we got to the services, because he wasn't sure he could make it. As he was sitting next to me, those, were probably the most awkward 5 minutes of my life. I even began to question whether I'd been adopted or not.

On the subject of my list, I have made two things out of Origami (after specially ordering Origami paper)
A Whale (which doesn't look like a whale) and a Crane.

Whale, apparently...

Crane
I also gave blood today! It was an odd experience...
Walking in, on your own, is a rather daunting thing. I walked in, gave 'em my form to which they gave me a booklet telling me what's happening with my blood, what I will be required to do, and what would happen if they found out I had a scary disease, such as AIDs. After reading through that twice, and waiting for 10 minutes I was called up to come behind the blue curtains. The nurse than asked me questions like where I was from, if I'd been near anyone who was diseased, etc, etc. She then gave my finger a prick with some little pricking machine, squeezed my finger so the blood spurted out, sucked it up with a pipette and put it in some tube, all so that she could tell me that I had that right amount of iron in my blood...
After that I went and waited at a table for 5 minutes to then be called to have my blood drained. A rather fetching nurse came and fetched me and took me to a bed type thing to which I lay down and she stuck a needle in me. Now, this needle was big, massive even, so she stuck the smallest bit of it in. I was disappointed... I then waited for five minutes while the blood bag filled up with a pint of my blood, was detached, made to do yoga, got given a biscuit, and then booked my next appointment. Overall, I came away quite amused, although the whole thing took me 40 minutes, it wasn't a problem, in fact, quite relaxing... I recommend it if you need an hour to yourself away from your two rather idiotic brothers, go give blood.

As I missed out blogging, I'm doing a whole paragraph in French for you...
Aujourd, je réveiller en retard, á aller á sont mon sang drainé et donner à manger à meurs de faim africain vampires.Which means: Today, I woke up late to have my blood drained and fed to starving African vampires.
Auvior.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

80 things!

Okay, so this was meant to be posted a few days ago, but I ended up having a rather busy life, which included the arrival of my Grandmo' who flew over from the middle east, seeing the Waddington Airshow and more work...


The first 80 things however are complete and are...
  1. 1.To learn The Cave - Mumford and Sons on Ukulele. 
  2. 2.Writing and recording an actual song!
  3. 3.To learn to make 100 things using origami!
  4. 4.To draw/paint/getartfunky something that means creativity... 
  5. 5.Learn French!
  6. 6.Cycle from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland (I was going to walk/hike it, but a dear friend pointed out that that may take a considerably long time...)
  7. 7.Write a book
  8. 8.Write a comic book series.
  9. 9.Dye my hair a crazy colour (I'm thinking blue...)
  10. 10.Get a tattoo
  11. 11.Sleep outside and look at the stars
  12. 12.Donate blood
  13. 13.Break a world record
  14. 14.Learn all the moves to a dance
  15. 15.Stop biting my nails
  16. 16.Read the bible, the WHOLE way through.
  17. 17.Run a marathon
  18. 18.Go to France (Test out the French and all)
  19. 19.Rap a whole song
  20. 20.Meet John Green 
  21. 21.Get a badge from Charlie Mcdonnel.
22.Meet Warren Ellis, my favourite comic book Author of all time..
23.Learn to Drive (I don't know how to prove that to you...)
24. Do a blog everyday for a month
25.Have £1000 at any given time in the bank.
26.Be on the Ministry Team (Every year I go to a thing called Walsingham Youth Pilgrimage and the ministry team are the beasts of the whole entire thing)
27. Make a list of all the things I want to own, and buy them.
28.Touch my toes (I am about as flexible as a rock.)
29.Go without Caffeine for a month (I'm rather an addict)
30.Do the picture a day project in 2012
31.Start a vlog to coincide with this blog
32.Write and direct a short film
33.Get 100 followers
34.Stay up for 24 hours
36.Do something for Charity, not sure which, and this may coincide with another number on the list...
37.Write a song with my Mother, she's a writing inspiration, I still love reading all her angsty poems from when she was a teen.
38.Teach my little brother something that would be useful
39.Make a scrapbook
40.Visit the family in South Africa
41.Read the whole Lord of the Rings series
42.Spend an hour a week meditating
43.Go on holiday abroad without Family accompaniment
44.Do a course in massaging/masseuse
45.Do volunteer work
46.Visit the British library
47.Join the gym
48.Learn to snowboard
49.Learn to do and complete a Rubik's cube in under a minute
50.Be a vegetarian for 21 days
51.Fold 1,000 Origami cranes and give them out to people in a well known location
52.Go on a 30 day fast
53.Make 1,000 origami flowers and throw them off a building into a mass crowd of people
54.Skydive
55.Climb a mountain
56.Plant a Tree
57.Dance in the POURING rain
58.Own a pygmy hedgehog or a turtle
59.Pick a random destination on a map and go there
60.See the Mona Lisa at the Louvre
61.Cook a recipe from every colonised continent
62.Pay £20 for a Big Issue magazine and let the seller keep the change 
63.Complete a really big Lego project
64.Spend a New Year kissing someone
65.Do a giant art project
66.Fill 5 sketchpads with drawings from random people
67.Get at least 20 random people to sing Hakuna Matata with me
68.Go to Alton Towers
69.Visit my Grandmother before she leaves living in the Middle East
70.Learn to knit
71.Make a house using ice lolly sticks
72.Make an advert for something that doesn't exist
73.Finish building my guitar
74.Build my own speakers
75.Sleep in a haunted house
76.Audition for a national talent show
77.Go in a Zorb ball
78.Deliver a Christmas/Birthday present to someone living more then 100 miles away
79.Take a girl on a date to a restraunt with a Michelin star
80.Send a letter to the 5 people who've changed my life over the past 5 years telling them how and why they've changed it.

This means that I will be starting to do all these things and have 2 years from now.
I will post another blog this week including the making of my first Origami thing and the next French phrase...
I still need suggestion from any readers, so feel free to email/comment/message me ideas, it would be muchly appreciated!

Tuesday 28 June 2011

My busy weekend...

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while... I have good reason!
I was going to post on the weekend, BUT I got a job... Which I worked both Friday AND Saturday, despite having to be out for both nights, and I took my little brother to see Kung Fu Panda 2 on Sunday... Great weekend for me, annoyance for you.
I do realise that I promised that 80 things on the list would be done by the end of this month, and I also realise that that's in two days, but despite the fact that I've stopped giving you peeks at what it could be, it will be done!

So, I thought I'd share with you a little of what I've done without you... putting up damn Marquees! The Summer Ball at my Sailing Club was on Saturday... I wasn't even invited, the joys of having your Mumengaged to the Commodore... On the plus side, I'm not as weedy as I once was!
The weekend was brilliant! Friday night was my friend's Birthday so there was a party-ish thing at his house, which involved jumping on a trampoline in the pouring rain with my friend lying on it while we bounced around him shouting " Magikarp use splash!" and having a conversation with his Mum about how to measure a bra...
Saturday night was hilarious! The party I went to then, was themed. The theme being time, so everyone was dressed ridonkulously! I went as an 80's punk rocker, I have to say, I really can't pull it off... I also discovered that I'm about as flexible as a rock. We played the cereal box game, which involves picking up a cereal box with your mouth and only touching the floor with your feet... As it's being cut smaller and smaller... I was the first person out.

My French apology!
Je s'excuser pour mon sucer.
I apologise for my suck.

I honestly don't know how accurate that is, but hey, google translate says that I'm apologising for sucking...

I will have the completed list up on Wednesday, as long as I don't die in between now and then...

Sunday 19 June 2011

First 20 things!

The first 20 things of the list have been decided indefinitely. There are more to come and we will have an 80% finished list, the last 20 things will be left as I feel that doing these things will inspire me to do more, and I want to have room to add them to the list.
Here's the list:

  1. 1.To learn The Cave - Mumford and Sons on Ukulele. 
  2. 2.Writing and recording an actual song!
  3. 3.To learn to make 100 things using origami!
  4. 4.To draw/paint/getartfunky something that means creativity... 
  5. 5.Learn French!
  6. 6.Cycle from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland (I was going to walk/hike it, but a dear friend pointed out that that may take a considerably long time...)
  7. 7.Write a book
  8. 8.Write a comic book series.
  9. 9.Dye my hair a crazy colour (I'm thinking blue...)
  10. 10.Get a tattoo
  11. 11.Sleep outside and look at the stars
  12. 12.Donate blood
  13. 13.Break a world record
  14. 14.Learn all the moves to a dance
  15. 15.Stop biting my nails
  16. 16.Read the bible, the WHOLE way through.
  17. 17. Run a marathon
  18. 18.Go to France (Test out the French and all)
  19. 19. Rap a whole song
  20. 20.Meet John Green (A man who is becoming something which was not possible before, my favourite author)

  21. I know I promised a French phrase every week, but I don't have a French to English dictionary, and I don't want to test the reliability of an online translator, so as soon as I get one, I will apologise, in French at my suckishness.
As always suggestions would be welcome.
Cheers

Thursday 16 June 2011

The start of a list!

Okay, so as I said in my first blog I wanted to do some creative things, and have now came up with a few things, ta da!
  1. To learn The Cave - Mumford and Sons on Ukulele. Okay, so I got my Uke during the Easter holidays and really can't play a single thing... I'm trying though! I really have had no musical ambition up until now, and have realised how talentless I am, but it will be done!
  2. Writing and recording (with hopefully help from some friends) an actual song!
  3. Okay, so this one is kind of silly, but I want to learn to make 100 things using origami! Purely because it's always interested me but I only ever have time to create small things and then usually I forget...
  4. To draw/paint/getartfunky something that means creativity... Okay so that sounds kind of lame, but I hope to fill this a really big canvas full of as many different styles of art which all send the same message...
  5. Learn French! I used to do French in school, but as a bad pupil I skived it a lot and dropped it at the first possible opportunity. Only now am I seeing the value of what I lost, I can speak enough French to keep up basic conversation, but I want to be able to say things like, 'That Unicorn is looking rather rampant today!' I'll give you a French phrase a week to keep you up to date with that?
Okay, so it's a start, obviously some things such as learning The Cave on Ukulele can't be done in a month from the fact that I really suck and it's way beyond my ability, so I've decided to change it from doing a creative thing a month to a hundred creative things over the course of the next two years, but obviously I will show project progress every month, add photo's or tell you about how far I've gotten in certain things just to keep you guys interested and show I'm focused...

Just to let you guys to know that this month is purely dedicated to developing that list so don't expect to see anything on it yet (Well, maybe the French...)

Feel free to e-mail me any questions or suggestions at jefftheafrican@gmail.com

Buenos dias!

Thursday 9 June 2011

Bonjour.

Hello!
This is my first blog, so erm, welcome?
As you can probably see at the moment I haven't really made much effort in setting it up, BUT there is currently a proper background being mapped out and sorted especially for this...
I suppose I should tell you a bit about myself:
  • My name's Jeff
  • I'm Seventeen
  • Currently doing A levels; Physics, Maths and History.
  • Decided to start blogging for two reasons really; First being that I've decided to do something which I've named as the 'Do something creative' project, in which I plan to do a creative project a month which I shall blog about, add pictures, descriptions and build ups on here.
    The Second reason is that I personally enjoy writing as a hobby and thought that this would be a good place to share some of my creative 'intellect'.
  • I'm JeffTheAfrican because well, I'm African.
That seems to introduce me quite well I think, not too much information, but enough to leave you slightly intrigued (I hope..)

Adios!