youngadultfiction

i was surprised by the number of dead links and youtube videos, especially since nothing on here is even a year old, yet stuff from what is pretty recent (say, may or june) is gone

and that made me think about how everything is temporary and how the “internet age” has just seemed to ramp up that tension, so stuff can be removed at the click of a button so any digestion of a video or article or picture or whatever has to be done immediately because its pretty likely that in a few months time (if not sooner) you won’t be able to go back and reflect on it. indeed, there’s so many blank spots in my tumblr i can’t remember posting so they’re totally lost.

now, if i cant remember posting something it probably didn’t mean much/anything to me at the time of posting, but there’s no saying that picture or video or link may have meant a lot to later on (i.e. now) when circumstances change or i’m in a different mood or whatever.

and that is, as you know, kinda sad

    Wes Anderson Collection
    Fantastic Mr Fox        
    Greenberg    
    A Prophet        
    We Live in Public   
    Curb Your Enthusiasm: Complete HBO Season 5        
    Jim Jarmusch Collection Vol.1        
    Rashomon       
    The Aristocrats       
    Nick And Norah’s Infinite Playlist   
    Youth In Revolt    
    Superbad (Theatrical Cut)    
    Adventureland    
    In The Mood For Love        
    The Street Fighter / Return Of The Street Fighter / The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge    
    Sonny Chiba Collection - Vol. 2 
    Oddsac: A Visual Album by Animal Collective and Danny Perez        
    Milk    
    30 Rock Season 4    
    Syndromes And A Century
    Tekkonkinkreet       
    Repo Man           
    Jam    
    The Complete Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister - Collector’s Box Set        
    Generation Kill - Complete HBO Series   
    Takeshi Kitano Collection: Violent Cop, Boilingpoint, A Scene At The Sea, Sonatine, Getting Any?, Kids Return    
    Me And You And Everyone We Know    
    Brick    
    A Serious Man
    Quiet City & Dance Party Usa: 2 Films By Aaron Katz

    The New York Four by Brian Wood (Author), Ryan Kelly (Author)
    Siege: Thor by Billy Tan Kieron Gillen (Author)            
    Popgun Volume 4 by Jock (Artist), et al.        
    Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope (Author), Jose Villarubia (Author)            
    DMZ Vol. 9: M.I.A. by Brian Wood (Author), Riccardo Burchielli (Illustrator)            
    Ex Machina Vol. 10: Term Limits by Brian K. Vaughan (Author), Tony Harris (Illustrator)            
    Love Fights Volume 1: v. 1 by Andi Watson    
    Life Sucks by Gabriel Soria (Author), et al.        
    Omega: The Unknown Premiere HC by Farel Dalrymple (Artist), et al.            
    Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol. 3 by Alex Maleev Brian M Bendis (Author)                
    Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev Ultimate Collection Vol. 2 by Alex Maleev Brian M Bendis (Author), Alex Maleev (Illustrator)                     
    WildC.A.T.S. Version 3.0 Year One by Dustin Nguyen (Artist), Joe Casey (Author)            
    Ultimate Comics Avengers: Next Generation by Carlos Pacheco Mark Millar (Author)        
    Black Hole by Charles Burns (Author)            
    Animal Man (Book One) by Grant Morrison (Author), et al.                    
    Immortal Iron Fist By Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker & David Aja Omnibus HC by David Aja (Artist), et al.        
    Blankets by Craig Thompson (Artist)    
    Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance by Joe Casey (Author)            
    Sleeper Season Two by Ed Brubaker (Author), Sean Phillips (Author)            
    Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke (Artist)                
    Secret Invasion: Thor TPB by Doug Braithwaite (Artist), Matt Fraction (Author)            
    Sleeper Season One by Ed Brubaker (Author), Sean Phillips (Author)                
    Local by Ryan Kelly (Artist), Brian Wood (Author)        
    AX Volume 1: A Collection of Alternative Manga by Various (Artist)                
    Young Avengers Presents by Paco Medina (Artist), et al.                 
    Spider-Man: Kraven’s Last Hunt by Mike Zeck (Artist), J. M. DeMatteis (Author)                
    The Filth by Grant Morrison (Author), et al.        
    Lost At Sea by Bryan Lee O’Malley (Author)                
    Chew Volume 1: Taster’s Choice by Rob Guillory (Artist), John Layman (Author)            
    Scalped: Indian Country Vol 1 by Jason Aaron (Author), R.M. Guera (Author)            
    Fantastic Four By Jonathan Hickman Volume 1 by Dale Eaglesham (Artist), Jonathan Hickman (Author)                
    Dark Reign: Fantastic Four TPB  by Sean Chen (Artist), Jonathan Hickman (Author)            
    No Hero by Juan Jose Ryp (Artist), Warren Ellis (Author)            
    Ocean by Warren Ellis (Author), Chris Sprouse (Author)            
    Ignition City Volume 1 by Gianluca Pagliarani (Artist), Warren Ellis (Author)                
    Warren Ellis’ Frankenstein’s Womb by Marek Oleksicki (Artist), Warren Ellis (Author)                
    Doktor Sleepless Volume 1: Engines of Desire TP by Ivan Rodriguez (Artist), Warren Ellis (Author)

    Real Fast Food by Nigel Slater            
    Nemesis by Philip Roth        
    C by Tom McCarthy        
    You Are a Little Bit Happier Than I Am by Tao Lin            
    Cognitive-Behav​ioral Therapy by Tao Lin    
    One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez            
    El Tunel  by Ernesto Sábato            
    Floating Opera / the End of the Road by John Barth             
    How I Escaped My Certain Fate by Stewart Lee    
    Elliot Allagash by Simon Rich        
    Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima        
    White Noise by Don DeLillo            
    Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties by Ian MacDonald

    Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski            
    A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami       
    By Night In Chile by Roberto Bolano            
    Last Evenings On Earth by Roberto Bolano        
    Witz by Joshua Cohen       
    Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borge       
    The Collected Stories by Ernest Hemingway           
    The Face of Another by Kobo Abe   
    The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis by Lydia Davis       
    Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis [note: amazon doesnt have this in stock. wtf?)               
    Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco           
    Samaritan by Richard Price       
    Autofiction by Hitomi Kanehara       
    The Imperfectionist​s by Tom Rachman   
    The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein       
    1982, Janine by Alasdair Gray           
    Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman       
    Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell        
    The Big Sleep: A Philip Marlowe Mystery by Raymond Chandler            
    The Fallen: Life in and Out of Britain’s Most Insane Group by Dave Simpson
    Passages by Ann Quin        
    Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry by B S Johnson
    The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

lately ive not been in the mood to tumblr a lot (or do anything really, but whatevers) but the purple makes the dash look so nice today and everyone else has been quiet, so thought what the hell, i’ll throw a mix up.

here is a mix of tracks ive been listening to a lot lately, mostly stuff i dont own but have listened to via spotify, and a few notes about some of them if you want to suffer through me typing without capitals (i have a shitty keyboard, soz)

“radioactive” - kings of leon*

“woe is me” - the walkmen

“stephanie says” - the velvet underground**

“i am the cosmos” - chris bell

“ready for the world” - how to dress well

“laughing with a mouth of blood” - st vincent

“i’ll keep it with mine” - bob dylan***

“talkin’ ‘bout the smiling deathporn immortality blues (everyone wants to live forever)” - the flaming lips

enjoy

*yeah, i know. for some reasons i really like this. i hated it when i first heard it and have no intention of listening to either the rest of the album or any other song the kings of leon have ever written, but i dunno, this track is gold

**i ended up on an ex’s blog the other day which i had hitherto not bothered to look at despite urgings of my friends. judging from some posts, she was clearly very angry at me both before and after our breakup. anyway, in one post she talks about her favourite songs and this is on there (as well as thinly veiled digs at me). my velvets listening is usually confined to “&nico” and “wl/wh”, but this is pretty tight. plus, the girl was called stephanie - hence why it was on a list of her favourite songs, i guess. i wont be so mean as to say the lyrics remind me of her, but, “the people all call her alaska”, yep, that fits. (that sounds really harsh in print. let me just claify i was as much of a dickhead as she was a bitch, probably more so)

***ive been listening to the version off the recently released “the witmark demos” on spotify but since i only get a 30 second preview when i put this together on 8tracks, i dont know if this is that version. ive said it before, but “i’ll keep it with mine” is one of my favourite songs, no matter which artist is doing it and which version it is.

fyi, i deleted my other tumblr

hope everyone is ok x

So, let’s recap.

Last week, I told you how I found out that two lectures on my time-table clashed and so I would have to drop one subject.

Then, earlier this week, I talked about how an e-mail chain between me and someone in the department seemed to suggest there didn’t seem to be any system in place to get me on a course I actually wanted to do.

So today I went to my university* and spoke to the people in the department in person. My plan was to calmly set out my stall and, when they inevitably said I simply couldn’t do the course I wanted to do, go mad. Unfourtnatly I kinda skipped the first part of that and was made from the get-go. What can I say? It is an incredibly frustrating situation. I therefore didn’t blame the first women I spoke to when she referred me to someone senior; I was being awkward and somewhat aggressive, but you just have to be sometimes.

I went down the hallway to this other woman’s office. This woman made me shut the door and it was pretty obvious her tactic was to keep on talking and not let me get a word in edge-ways, which again is understandable because I was being awkward and somewhat aggressive and I know from experience the only way to deal with people when they’re like that is to keep talking about stuff that isn’t necessarily relevent and sound condescending. important note: she sounded condescending, but overall I can’t say she herself was condescending, except for a comment I’ll come to in a bit.

And went round in circles for a bit as she explained how hard it was to be a university administrator and how at this time of the year she and her colleague who I had spoken to earlier worked an extra three hours a day without overtime. I felt bad at this point because I never meant to suggest they weren’t good at their jobs or anything. OK, chances are my reply of “There doesn’t seem to be a system” when she said “I heard you have some questions about our enrolment system” probably didn’t help, but I honestly just wanted to sort my situation out and wasn’t interested in judging how well they are at their jobs.

Eventually we came to a compromise that I am not allowed to tell anyone about, and I won’t (though I did tell my parents, obviously). Afterwards though I started having some very cynical thoughts that they wouldn’t uphold their end of the compromise, but I’m trying to believe in the goodness of History department undergraduate administrators and cross my fingers that it’ll work out in the end.

But the thing that the condescending-sounding-but-not-condescending women said which made her seem entirely condescending was that she was doing it “For my sake” because I was so upset. So maybe I was less cool and level-headed than I thought I was (and I didn’t thing I was cool and level-headed at all!) and was crying or some shit.

But then on my train-ride home I was thinking about my genuine emotion state right now and it isn’t very good at all and I was thinking whether it was due to this whole situation or my worries about going back to uni tomorrow or my fear about what the fuck I’m going to do for a living once i leave uni next summer or even my severe haircut anxiety (which I still don’t accept is a “thing”) or loads of other things so I just conclude I’m kinda fucked up at the moment then went to sleep on the train.

*I don’t think I’ve actually named my University on here. I probably won’t, because when I was 15 I started a blog detailing 100 reasons my school at the time sucked and got kicked out a fortnight before my GCSEs, which has made my incredibly wearily of going into too much detail about these things.

Last week I wrote up this, about how I wasn’t able to do one of the modules I signed up to do because its lectures clashed with another. I therefore had to pick between the two. Annoying, yes, but shit happens. So I asked if it was possible to switch to another course (which I had originally wanted to do but it was full) but didn’t receive a reply on Friday because the woman on the other end had gone home for the weekend.

This morning I got a reply informing me there wasn’t, at present, any places on that other course. I asked if there was either a reserve list or a list of available spaces, as well as explaining that I was still at home but was willing to travel to campus to clear this all up in person this week.

I got this reply:

Course enrolments are changing every day so it is impossible to announce places that are available across the courses. We are not able to keep reserve lists either due to the sheer volume of courses and students. If you would rather not pop up this week, then I suggest you come and see me on Monday of Week 1. Please note that I can’t guarantee that any places will become available on any courses. Best wishes

So, basically, it’s all down to luck. I can’t put my name down for a course I want to do, I just have to hope there’s a free space in one I’m interested in doing.

I can’t even be bothered being angry about this by this point; it’s so fucking ridiculous. I typed out a reply to her but I don’t think there’s any point moaning on about it. It’s the stupidest fucking system I can imagine, but then again I don’t know why I’m so surprised given how my university would struggle to organise any type of bash in a brewery.