Universities and People

Yo,

Today I went on an ungodly trek up north into Leicester for a visiting day held for everyone accepted into the university. There were two objectives for today: number one, get a taste for the university and see if it really is the place for me. Number two, socialise with like-minded people and try to strike up a few friendships, god knows I could use some more friends that aren't always stoned or living outside of the country.

The university is amazing, that much I am certain of, the facilities, the English course, the genuine enthusiasm displayed by the professors and the students, all of this won me over, securing in my mind that this would be a fantastic place to study.

Unfortunately, the success of my second objective was much harder to determine. It seemed to me that the students being shown around the university had the collective personality of a sea cucumber. I tried to talk to about five prospective students and one second year dude, and of that number, two had any conversation to give and one was interesting. Alex. He bought me lunch, he's a good guy. I understand that people are shy and all, but the reason I have taken this to heart is because in my head for weeks, I'd planned this whole thing of me going to this table of people I didn't know, sitting myself down, striking up conversation and making some new friends. Apparently, people don't want that. Urgh, reading over this makes me sound pathetic, but I'm just upset I suppose.

Any way, so, of course my train was cancelled due to 1cm, yes, 1cm, of snow. I had to forfeit a seat in a quiet carriage on a direct route back to London and stand with a shoal of other people who made an effort to be as strange as possible. Mouse-girl, for instance (for she looked and acted like a mouse) was frequently found sitting on the floor, huddled over her shitty iPhone. This wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that one guy tripped over her and then she was later battered by a food trolley. Okay, so that last point was admittedly quite funny.

Any way, this is where my day was slightly redeemed, I was sitting next to this very interesting lady with a beautiful personality. These are my people, the ones who strike up big, interesting conversations with complete strangers - fuck sitting there in awkward silence. So this (if I remember correctly) Germano-Swiss, Indo-Finnish lady and I held a conversation for what must have been forty minutes but gratefully felt much longer, about 100 subjects, history, our families, our plans for the future, travel, terrible British everything and Rammstein. Apparently, German people don't like Rammstein, who knew? Not I.

Any way, she honestly made an otherwise terrible journey 1000% more enjoyable. Gotta love random foreigners.

So, part two in my love for humanity comes when two ticket collectors actually believed my genuine story of fucked-uppery train travel and let me get onto the London Underground without any hassle whatsoever, even directing me onto the train I should have (but couldn't physically afford to have) paid for.

The travel eased up after that, I bought a railcard for the underground, and big fucking double cheese burger and chips with orange juice because I don't want to get fat, then trekked up the Metropolitan back home. I got to my stop - ticket didn't work, I asked the lady behind the counter to buzz me through, she stared at my ticket, looked up at me and then ranted for a minute or two about how I was a despicable human being for using a railcard for zones 1-4 when I was currently in zone 9. Lady - I couldn't give two fucks. Any way, I politely apologised, smiled and asked whether she would buzz me through or whether I had to pay the £50 fine. She scowled at me and told me that if anyone else had checked my ticket, I would have been forced to pay the fine, which is bull shit, because this has happened before and the nice people let me through any way.

Fucking jobsworth.

Any way, I realised today that I can no longer deal with any sort of major confrontation and I felt physically shaken by her tirade for about ten minutes afterwards - hell, I was even willing to pay the fine, but because I was wearing a hoodie and a bandana (which was pulled down off my face) she obviously assumed I was scummy.

Also some black lady stared at me the whole time I was on the metro - the whole time she was awake any way. I thought she was going to punch me or something because she was giving me a horrible fucking look...also, some old geezer stared at me in absolute disgust when I sat across from him, he was a suit and he made a habit of trying to make himself look high-and-mighty, then when I pulled out Dominion from my bag and got to work reading that thick-arse book, he looked surprised at me, like I was some primordial being communicating with rudimentary speech for the first time.

So, rant over. Don't expect anyone to comment on this but I feel a whole fucking lot better that I got this all off my chest. Thing is, on a whole the day wasn't that bad, it was just the evening. If it wasn't for that foreign lady - bless her soul - I would have gone insane.

I think I'm losing my tolerance for the general public, if I turn into my dad I am going to shoot myself.