A Load of Boc

Hi everyone,

I have been asked to blog. This might not be very good. Just a random summary of what is happening:

* I finished my degree, don't know my grade yet, thinking 2:1.
* I am really struggling with Christian stuff. Not even sure I am one. I have never really wanted to be a Christian. It seems like a chore, and that God is trying really hard not to accept you for who you are. It's like "Change tuvwxyz and I might look at you." Of course, I look into my heart and see that there is no reason He should accept me. I haven't really "truly repented" or "invited Him in with my whole heart". I sort of resent having to do it. I am going to try and humble myself, though, because I really don't want to go to Hell.
* EDIT: Just decided to moan about FIFA. I think limits on foreign players will play straight into the hands of Chelsea, who will buy up the entire England squad and no-one else will be able to afford English players, due to the exchange rate. I don't buy the national side explanation, either. Italy have had foreign players in Serie A for years, and of course their national team is so much worse than England's... And even if Arsenal's English youngsters don't normally end up playing for Arsenal, they do usually end up in the Prem. I see the supposedly worst side for keeping English players out produced England's future star David Bentley... and Fabrice Muamba, and Anthony Stokes, and both Hoytes, and Kerrea Gilbert, and some Chelsea defender or other... I believe this attempt to reduce the number of foreign players is thinly veiled racism, which appeals to the worst part of people's natures. If it's genuinely not this, then it is very misguided in terms of the benefit people think it will bring to the game. I wait to be proven wrong (by which time, if it comes in 2012-13 season, I will be over 30... eek... might not care anymore... or be able to afford my season ticket, especially if they restrict the number of foreign players, causing us to spend more on English players who aren't as good as the foreigners we get for £3.5m and sell for lots!)

* Happier stuff: I have a boyfriend called Jakub who is loooooooovely and says HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
* I just renewed my season ticket!
* I was at work today. Yesterday, first day back in months, I decided two of my workmates are Sims. One of them even looks like Caroline's supermodel sim, Essie. They were speaking Polish to each other, which might as well be Simlish to me (I know 5-10 Polish words and 2 are unrepeatable).
* My mum is scrubbing her front steps. Hello 1950!
* Audiosurf is addictive.
* I am supporting France, Croatia and Poland in Euro 2008. Cazza, Ros and I are going on an adventure next weekend, in which we hope to watch football with fans of at least 4 different nationalities and eat a very nice lunch at Ros' house. Any tips for a Swiss, Czech, Portuguese or Turkish location in north London? Ta muchly! Please all tell me who you're supporting in the Euros, I find it interesting. We're going to the good old Cadogan Arms, or wherever the CSYPN are going, to watch Austria-Croatia and somewhere Polish for Germany-Poland, with Jakub:D
* Caroline has met a Croatian 45-year-old Mourinho clone. I predict that he is fantastic.
* I'm feeling kind of excited, passionate and nice, so I'll leave it there!

I hope everyone there is fine. Praying for you all.

God bless, Jenni xx

I'm glad they sent me an email saying my Open Diary is about to die.

It gives me a chance to do the right thing, and thank Justin Brierley for giving me some airtime by providing a link to the programme, so, if you want to hear what I sound like AND an interesting debate on the role of the church in the world, click here:

http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=680

It should be there by now!

I need to start blogging again, particularly as Ian and Justin provided links to my blog!

I'm sorry for never blogging and never replying to anyone's comments. I'll try and do better in future!

Oh dear, this YouTube video is loading in the background, I didn't want that to happen... Hope all is well with everybody here.

God bless, Jenni x

My exams are over. I hope Milan won't use the fact that I moulded one of their shirts to go and lose. Will be watching it with a Liverpoo fan. Wearing my Arsenal shirt atm. That'll confuse 'em

Really dunno what to do now uni is finished. I have like 2/3 things to do every day between now and Monday, when I can go home.

Summer Ball was messy. I got drunk. Lost track of how much I was drinking. Totted it up the next day and thought "No wonder!" People say I was acting OK, though, so that's fine. A certain person I know was getting into a little trouble, managing to cheese at least 2 of my friends off. Fortunately I was unaffected by anyone else's drunken behaviour!

Didn't make it to church on Sunday 'cos the trains weren't running. Looking forward to this week's!

Right, going to go and sort out my programme planning now.

God bless, Jenni xx

I would have learned it 2 days ago, but John didn't know my answer to the question.

Me: "What are creps?"
John: "Misspelt crisps?"

Wes has just enlightened me. Creps are, in fact, shoes.

Went to church yesterday and decided to have a hysterical fit. This was probably a good thing, as it meant a girl in church came and prayed for me, and gave me some good advice. While we were praying, she quoted the bit in Zephaniah which says that God delights in His people. She's the second person to think God wants me to hear that. I take the hint Wonderful. I think I am going to stay in that church, although it's God I should be thankful for, rather than the church!

I have to go and do some revision in a minute. Have three exams this week. Need to buy my ticket for the Summer Ball on Friday. Had really better start getting on with it! I think the fact that, thanks to Ros, I do now regularly get up before midday will be instrumental in helping me past this semester! Hope everyone on here is well.

Btw - the T team finished fifth. HOW, WHY? I can't believe Chelsea got gifted a goal to maintain their unbeaten home record and make sure the T team finished fifth. I didn't know those two were in cahoots! I thought they hated each other, and I don't want to get either Tottenhamitis or Chelseaitis, thank you very much!

AFC Totton lost the FA Vase final to Truro. This was annoying, as Totton is near Southampton. There is an ASDA there. You shouldn't by ham there, for obvious reasons. Mum said the local news subtitles decided to call them T*tt*nh*m. Ironic, as Cazza used to think the T team came from Totton!

God bless, Jenni xx

We should restart GRODD.

Oh yeah, GRODD was great! Next time I go home I'm going to start posting stuff I did in GRODD, the football action group my sister, friends and I had between 1996 and 1998.

Seriously, re. the Wenger thing, I'm not just whinging because I'm an Arsenal fan. I'm whinging because who made the FA the police? The whole system is so outdated. If the linesman is really so upset about being accused of lying, he can sue Wenger. I think it's time the various leagues told the FA to sod off and got with the real world. There shouldn't be Opinion or Thought Police in football, or anywhere else. This is a fundamental freedom of speech issue for me, albeit a trivial one, but in what other discipline do you get fined for speaking your mind?

Opinions anyone?

God bless, Jenni xx

The following conversation occurred earlier, don't ask how.

3:58 PM hossein: cool!
ok!
4:00 PM im gonna kill all the basterds who support chealsea liverpool manchester tottenham AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!hehehe
me: yes you've got it!! oh my gosh, Hossein learns...
4:01 PM hossein: david actually!hehe
me: Dave is a cat
hossein: i learn because im arsenal fan!, im not a dickhead like chealsea fans!

I think it's funny anyway. Meanwhile, the following things have been discovered:

* Supporting the T team is a mental illness.
* The T team drew 3-3 with Chelski to give everybody Tottenhamitis.

The following funny phone conversation took place yesterday:

Joti: "What time did you guys get home on Friday?"
Me: "3pm Saturday."
Joti: "No, I mean what time did you guys get home on Friday?"
Me: "No, I am not lying to you mate, 3pm Saturday!"

I'm obsessed with a scratch on my left hand.

We're going to start a Sp*rs-related conspiracy and see if we can make the world believe.

1 March is to be celebrated as International Lamination Day from now on. Enfield Campus finally has a laminator for student use. Did I mention that last time?

This post is dodgy.

* * *

Anyway, back to the real world. I finally finished my EU Policy Review today. It took me well over a week! NOT NORMAL! I usually take 4 days over an assignment. I'm glad I left it late though, 'cos our lecturer gave us some advice yesterday. Certain people have already handed theirs in! Bleurgh!

I was really worried yesterday, 'cos I started thinking I'm going to Hell. Why do I keep going back to this? I must have become a Christian like 3 million times, and I believe you only have to do it once... well, most of me does anyway... John sorted my head out. He was really kind

Anyway, I should stop messing around online now.

God bless, Jenni xx

Hi everybody! I do apologise for my absence. It is enforced: I have so much work to do, and I feel guilty if I write, but don't read and comment! But I've heard people are missing me, so decided to stick in a quick summary of recent events.

My Grandad died aged 92 on Good Friday, and I went to the funeral on the Isle of Wight. It was a great service. I loved the overtly Christian funeral, because the vicar was unafraid to talk about Grandad's death being a blessing, as he was very old and frail, and had great faith that he was going on somewhere better. I think my gran's going to be OK too - my dad's going to go over and help her as often as possible, which was why we moved to C/Ford in 1993 and has only just become useful!

I've got one essay in, have 2 to do, one of which is nearly ready to go I think, and then have 3 exams. Heaven knows how I'm going to get all this work done, but I'm deadline motivated, and as things get nearer, I will work harder! How was I so much more motivated last semester, though? I did far less work, but felt cleverer, better informed and more competent! Hmmm.

I've decided to go to Wesley Chapel full time, although I only seem to be able to make church every 2wks atm! I know it's awful, and really wish I'd gone yesterday.

Friday... hehe I am obsessed with a song called "Cowboy Film", which I heard whilst being driven round Walthamstow at 2.30am! Happy days! It took me a while to establish what the song was. Googling didn't work because whoever typed the lyrics in had written "flim" instead of "film". Easily done!

Arsenal have started winning, being able to play badly and win, when it's FAR too late. I've started a Facebook group calling on people not to leave early! The topless three - Diaby, Eboue and Adebayor - tickled my fancy yesterday as well

Right, I think I'd better turn that in there! Hope you're all really well, having fun et al.

God bless, Jenni xx

I was pondering this morning how a lot of Arsenal's foreign stars, past and present, haven't been as pindownable in terms of nationality or extraction as they seem.

The most interesting example is Patrick Vieira. Everyone knows he comes from Senegal and is naturalised French, but I didn't find out that neither of his parents are from Senegal till I got hold of a copy of his autobiography. His mother is from Cape Verde and his father is from Gabon.

Robert Pires is half Spanish, half Portuguese and didn't speak a word of French till he was 5 apparently. (If you look down Portuguese wine lists, some of them have the word Pires in them!) Thierry Henry has one parent from Guadeloupe and the other from Martinique, but I can't remember which way round. Both of Emmanuel Adebayor's parents are Nigerian. He was born in Togo, but went to school in Ghana because they lived close to the border - meaning he is fluent in French and English, as Ghana is an English speaking country.

And that's just Arsenal. The whole Premiership has been full of interesting cases for years. Tim Cahill's father is second-generation Irish, his mother is Samoan, and he grew up in Australia and moved to England aged 16 to play football. Neither of Marian Pahars' parents is Latvian, although I don't know the details, and Danny Cadamarteri could have played for at least 5 different countries - he is part Irish, Italian, Nigerian and Jamaican, and born in England. I have a feeling at least one of his parents was born in Scotland, but Wiki can't prove that for me

This led me to ponder: Is life like this, or is it just football? My first instinct was: No, football is weird. But thinking about my own group of friends, I know at least 3 people of interesting extraction (Filipino/Mauritian, Dutch/Welsh, Turkish/Armenian). The world really is a small place!

Adam sent me a text with a piccie of this sign in London this morning. Someone has added the name "Thierry" to the Henry Road sign in Manor House. It is very professionally done! Surprised I can't find it on Google. I did find that adding a random word to a Thierry Henry image search yields different piccies to normal!

I'm still off work. Just felt so TIRED this morning. Had weird dreams all night. Hilarious! In the first one, I was being chased by a robot from Doctor Who. I knew it was only a toy, but I was still scared! In the second one, something political was going on at Middlesex. We were having some kind of election, NUS Conference-style. It was NOTHING like actual Middlesex elections. One of my lecturers caught me handing out leaflets for a meeting against her, calling her a Zionist! A load of New Labour types were campaigning in favour of privatisation. I asked one why she supported privatisation, and she said, "Cumbria". I asked another, who was wearing a Lib Dem sticker, and she said "Because everyone else here does!" I told her that was a rubbish reason, and said "What about the rail crashes?" She said those had nothing to do with privatisation. I was trying to explain why they did, but she wasn't really listening.

Suzie Wylie and I then walked in the opposite direction across Trent Park campus, where all this was taking place (except it didn't really look a lot like TP, obviously). Of course, with it being TP, I then ran into Trevor. I woke up just as it was getting really interesting! Suzie wandered off and left us to it!

Well anyway, had better shoot off now as my gran is coming soon. Hope you all have a great weekend! And better luck than me finding Easter eggs!

God bless, Jenni xx

Argh, I went back to work yesterday and felt fine all day, then tried to get up for work today and just couldn't. Kept waking up in the night, then when I did finally try to get up, had a sore throat again, couldn't breathe properly again... It took me till 8 to get hold of anyone to ring in sick to again! I need a hug.

Stacey is picking up my season ticket from 80 Kingsway today, so I will at least be able to go to the match! Thanx, mate!

I'm going to try and get to work tomorrow. I don't work Fridays, so if I can make it through tomorrow I've got 2 days to try and get over it. Next week I'm going to attempt some uni work, but thinking about that TERRIFIES me, so I won't until Mon!

Need to buy Becky a birthday present. She's coming tomorrow.

Mum and Dad are in Bristol because a lad from church was in hospital in a coma. They'd been gone about an hour when Mum rang to say he's awake and is fine, but since they were halfway there by then, they've carried on! I thanked God immensely for this, as no-one knows quite what is wrong and it was scary. Is it me or do doctors seem to NOT know what is wrong more often than they DO know?!

I watched some of Liverpool last night. The most exciting bit was when Patrick Kluivert came on as sub for PSV. (He's on my list, and semi-naked on my phone!) Why couldn't they have given the ball away to OUR players in front of their own goal? Why do Liverpool always start to get lucky RIGHT NOW? If we were rubbish at the beginning of the season and good at the end, rather than the other way round, maybe we'd win more stuff.

I found out yesterday afternoon that Google Chat doesn't support you talking to more than 3 people at once. Useful! I had to keep brbing people!

Well anyway, I'm off now to get some more water and play Sims. Have fun everyone, and God bless!

Dovidjenja!

Jenni xx