Well, I finally feel as though I've made it as a student. I am officially in debt.
Of course, I was officially in debt three years ago thanks to my decision to take up degree studying and get someone else to pay the fees for me. However, the three-and-a-half grand of debts for my three-and-a-half months venturing into the world of Graphic Design, added to the six-thousand so far accumulated since the most recent of Septembers, don't seem to have phased me very much. Actually going thirty-two pounds overdrawn, however, is an entirely different matter.
Yes, I've finally plunged, for the first time in my life, into the non-existent depths of the overdraft. At the time of my monthly shop (because I find it much easier to get all my edibles in one fell swoop and haul it back to the flat by any means necessary [taxi, crowded bus, huskie-pulled sled]), I've finally seen sense in casting off the oppressing shackles of the biggies (Asda, Tesco) and fallen in with the Aldi crowd. It's very self satisfying roaming around collecting goodies that, in a typical supermarket environment, would total upwards of twenty pounds, having all of it bleeped through at lightning speed and being politely mugged for the princely sum of £15.11
Basically, what I just tried to say (in far too many words) is that I've actually hit the point in my life where spending a fiver less than I thought I would've has actually proved to be the highlight of the year so far (subject to change at any moment). However, I've not actually looked at any of it since I brought it home and organised it into relevant fridge, freezer or cupboard spaces. This is due the fact that I actually doubt the existance of such items having been obtained with what I'll be referring to as "hypothetical money".
To top off the crappy uneasy feeling of non-existence and insignificance and other such words found through the use of an online thesaurus, my television watching habits have betrayed me thanks to the fast growing obsession with popular daytime "not-actually-a-game-show" game-show Deal Or No Deal.
Resist as I might, I can't help but get sucked into what is essentially Schrödinger's cat theory remade with twenty-two boxes and, thus, twenty-two specified amounts of prize money (or in this analogy "cats") for the purposes of light entertainment. That, plus to give Noel Edmonds something to do... it
has been a while since Noel's House Party to be fair. I've been drawn into the show so much that I've even developed my own strategy of watching it. See, the beginning is rubbish. People who jizz themselves over revealing lower amount early on always fail to realise the fact that only one of the potential prizes (or "cats") on the board is actually significant to them (or "dead"). Therefore, the first half of any episode essentially become background noise to accompany me during various endeavours, including (but not limited to) cooking, writing, tidying, colouring, eating, itching, sleeping, procrastinating, and locking cats in boxes along with unstable vials of arsenic.
Once a game is about half-way through, the game of chance begins to get interesting considering the reduced amount of potential prizes, which can range from a whopping quarter-of-a-million pounds (aka, the cat's alive) to a nice shiny penny (there was no cat in the box to begin with).
Anyway, in today's edition (or rather
yesterday's since I'm now posting after midnight), the plucky young lady locked in an epic battle with Fate suffered immeasurable torment when faced with a simple few big money prizes alongside a bunch of lottery tickets with three matching numbers on. She ultimately left the game with a certainly-not-to-be-sniffed-at £7,000. However, on a more personal level, I did that thing that Joe-Public-sitting-at-home-watching-the-TV does and decided to play along as if it were actually me on the other side of the glass box in the corner. I would've continued and found myself facing around £13,000. Slightly more impressive, but the poor student in me took over my state of mind and any rational thinking vacated my body and spirit and various other parts I didn't know existed (they're usually chillin' with the overdrafts over at NatWest Towers). I decided to decline my imaginary £13,000 and got the woman to act as my puppet, eliminating all the rubbish prizes leaving two substantial sums of money... with a substantial gap in between. And that's when
the banker the Endemol producer using the distorting voice box prominently featured in the Scream trilogy delivered the news that there would be a potential £107,000 up for grabs at this moment. Hypothetical me saw sense and dealt with this six figure sum and rejoiced that he no longer had to worry about debt. Unfortunately, due his hypothetical-ness, he was poisoned inside a enclosed space and tragically did not live to tell the tale.
So that's where I'm at: money woes. Money is the route of all evil, and evil squared is hypothetical (probably). The only thing that managed to save this day from the brink of oblivion was my (possibly hypothetical) jar of hot chocolate, which, when you have to pierce that little golden seal and rip it off from the inside outwards, managed to form itself into the symbol of Yin and Yang, only without the dots. In fact, I'd go as far to say it beats my shopping trip to the title of highlight of the year so far (still subject to change until 23:59, 31 December 2011). OBSERVE:
So, that's how you turn a simple, non-existant thirty-two quid into a fucking essay of a blog post. And for the record, I'm still convinced "The Banker" is actually Mr. Blobby, being the only person(?) to keep Noel's television career alive.
