Alienation

So well, not much happening today, just chilling at the flat and falling asleep when I was supposed to be doing work. Nothing new, then. It's a good thing I still have a few tales left from the last entry (left them out on purpose as I knew there wouldn't be much material for this one... how damn clever am I?).

Earlier this week I was walking around the uni with James (I think we had just gotten something to eat at the Union) and all of a sudden he says "isn't that him?" and he stares in a northwest direction. "him? what are you on about?" I ask, but he just keeps staring, as if trying to figure something out. I look, but I don't see anything significant. "What the hell are you on about!?" I demand this time, getting a bit irritated. He finally speaks in a sort of confused way "isn't that that guy... your flatmate... Irish guy?" I look in the direction where he's looking, but I don't see anything. After verbally abusing him a few times I finally do see it. It is him! Working. On somethig other than women! He's actually working on some civil engineering stuff to make our uni better! You have no idea how shocked I was to see Richie working. Up until that moment I had thought that he was just some bum living in our flat posing as a student. But that confirmed it, he did do something once in a while. The next day we passed by the same spot and there were people working there again! However, Richie wasn't there anymore, he had been replaced by another person. He probably got the sack--now that makes much more sense...

So on Friday James and I are making our way to the computer cluster in order to attend our practical. I decide we should take the back route (stop thinking about that, that's not what I meant (just guarding against Tiny)) and after a bit of arguing we finally do. Then, my next brilliant idea is to take the lift up to the first floor (I'm lazy, okay?). So we get in and push the button labled "1" and we wait. We're talking about something, whatever the hell it was, who cares, and then after a few seconds we agree that it doesn't feel as if it's moving. After a few more seconds we agree that indeed it is not moving. After a few more seconds we agree that we have to do something to get the hell out of there as we're probably trapped. Just as we're about to start panicking the doors open and we see this bloke waiting to get in (and we notice we're still in the basement). So we get out of the lift as fast as it is humanly possible and we see that the bloke is getting on. James tells me that we should tell him that it's broken. "Fuck that, let him figure it out for himself... let's go" and we left. Yep, that's me at my best.

Now Ryan's quite the disturbed guy. He watches the most gory of films and the most fucked up things ever. In fact, if I had to signal a person that's more disturbed than I am I would probably point to Ryan. I've watched some of his films and although they haven't disgusted me or troubled me, I can see how they could completely fuck somebody else up. Yesterday, though, Ryan let me in on a little secret that if known to the masses, it could destroy his reputation as the horror man. Here it is: Ryan is scared of E.T. Yes, E.T. the film. The one that has the description in the back starting "A lost little alien..." I couldn't believe it when he told me. This guy who listens to aggressive death-speed metal and laughs at emotionally scarred little kids is afraid of a PG rated film! I laughed for at least five minutes in his face--something I think he didn't appreciate--before I could calm down and then laugh some more. Then he told me that he was serious, that the only times in his life that he had had nightmares had been when he had watched E.T. I just couldn't stop laughing at that point.

Today Steve came over to bother and eat, and I happened to let him in on the secret (he was looking through the films and he questioned if we should watch E.T.). He laughed for about ten minutes before he could calm down. After that he took the piss out of Ryan throughout the rest of the night. But, finally, we ended up watching E.T., just to help Ryan overcome his fear of the lost little alien. Oh, and of course so that we could take the piss out of him.