_ I was going to give today’s entry the title ‘Bus Etiquette’ but then I decided on ‘Bus Behaviour’ due to the added alliterative appeal. Anyway, I don’t like to have my blog as a place for me to complain about things, though I’m slightly worried that that is how this entry will come across (sorry if that is the case).
    Today’s post starts with an anecdote. After a long day of working hard at the university, it was time to go home. I was waiting in line for the bus, and ahead of me was another regular guy. However, there was a subtle difference between he and I, and that subtle difference was that he had a rather sizeable circle of friends (three to be specific) who happened to be walking along beside the bus line. This is what happened, I’ve decided to name the guy waiting in line ‘Norman’:

Dante: Oh hey, Norman.
Ermentrude: Oh yeah! Hey Normy.
Gus: Yo, sup bro?
Norman: Alright homies? Shanking much lately?
Dante: Yeah, we shanking!
Ermentrude: This is for real bro!!
Norman: Oh no, my man Guss here done knocked it out of the park!
All of them: Woo!

(or something like that)

With that, their conversation had come to an end, so I assumed that Dante, Ermantrude and Gus would then all head to the back of the line, but they all then took the three spaces in line behind Norman…

Me: (thinking) Hmm, maybe I should have a word with those three people and ask them politely to move to the back of the line because they’re stealing spaces which aren’t rightfully theirs… Actually, nah, that’s be rude. It’s best if I just leave it, after all, this doesn’t directly affect me in any way!

Five minutes later or so, the bus arrived and the long line of people slowly walked on into the bus. Norman got in, Dante got in, Ermentrude got in, then Gus got in. I was behind them in the line, so now it was my turn to get on I stepped up into the bus and approached the driver, ticket in hand. I was excited to get in so that I could then go home and read books (or whatever else it is that I do in my free time). Then this heartbreaking exchange happened:

Me: Here’s my ticket (smiling happily)
Driver: Sorry mate, the bus is too full, you can’t get on.
Me: Oh, okay… (gets out of bus, smile suffers internal collapse)

Now, is it just me, or is there something wrong with this situation? Shouldn’t the correct rules for queuing at the bus stop be that your friends are perfectly free to chat with you in the line if they are not intending to ride the bus as well, but if they are, you have to move to the back of the line to talk to them. Otherwise, the people with no friends who are near the back of the line are given the further misfortune of having to be further back due to the overly popular people.
    Furthermore, I’ve noticed another immorality related to the buses at my university. Often (due to the time of year) it is cold and raining, which is lucky for the people at the front of the line because they get to hide from it in a bus shelter. But then that means the people at the back of the line firstly get soaked while those at the front stay dry and, secondly, that after already being wet, they have to stand up on the bus because the dry people already have the seats. It seems slightly unfair to me.
    But like I say, this isn’t supposed to be a complainy blog! Riding on the bus is fun usually, with the gentle vibrations, comfy seats and so on! These are just a couple of things that bother me slightly…

Recently (for some reason) one of the rules for editing Wikipedia has been stuck in my head. I haven’t done any editing on Wikipedia for quite a while so this rule may be slightly misremembered, but to the best of my knowledge one of their rules is (as I’m sure you can guess from this title’s entry) that you should assume good will when people have changed something that you’ve written. This, I think, shows just how good Wikipedia is when, even in it’s guidelines of use, you can find an insightful comment on moral philosophy.
    If you apply the ‘assume good will’ rule to everyday life it saves you a lot of unhappiness and also ensures that you behave in a moral way. If somebody does something that has negative repercussions for you, you’re likely to get upset for two reasons: firstly, because something bad has been done to you and, secondly, because this implies that whoever did it doesn’t really care about you. Now, it may just be me, but I think the one that’s likely to cause the most stress is the fact that somebody probably doesn’t care that much about you. So, if you ‘assume good will’ when somebody choses to do something bad to you, you won’t feel as bad, because you’ll be assuming that they didn’t have malicious intentions, and to be honest, the majority of times when people upset one another, it is a misunderstanding and things would not escalate so badly if the other person had assumed good will.
    Now, my final point, adopting this maxim would make you a better person, and here’s why: Think of something bad you’ve done, the worst thing. When you have done things to people which are ‘immoral’ you haven’t ever done it just to ‘be bad’ or ‘for the evulz’ have you? Every immoral thing you’ve done, will probably have stemmed from the fact that you didn’t assume good will when somebody inadvertently wronged you. You immoral actions were most likely revenge or something similar. Assuming good will, will mean that you avoid this, conflicts won’t escalate as often and you can talk it over with the other person involved in a relaxed, peaceful atmosphere.

I’m not talking about myself in the title of today’s blog post, I’m not much of a photographer (well, obviously I have taken photographs before in my life, but I wouldn’t class it as something I do as a hobby), instead the title refers to my good friend TülinKei (pen name). You may remember a few months ago I posted a link to the blog Yellow Kokoro which had entries about Korean music and Doctor Who (amongst other things) well, Stacey is the author of that blog and she has now opened a new one called I Take Pictures which features some very good artistic photos. I suggest you give it a brief visit!
Here’s a link: http://photo-kei.blogspot.co.uk/

I noticed today that I’ve been maintaining this blog for nearly six months now, which I’m quite proud of (not to sound smug). I’m quite surprised really that I continued with it really, it only started when I was sitting in my 6th Form’s study room with Dalfino Madrigal Keyte and he said “Hey, you should start a blog” and so, on a whim, I made this up.
    At the start of this week I had decided that Friday’s post would be the final update here on the Trusty Water Blog and had only two more entries planned. One of the two entries was my theory about A Clockwork Orange which I said I would be writing soon, and the other was going to be a final entry, one which explained why it was that I was ending my blog. The reason for this is that, while I do enjoy keeping this blog, it seemed to me that I hadn’t had any particularly good ideas for entries lately and, as such, the general quality was declining and becoming unenjoyable for the readers.
    But, last night I was talking to a good friend of mine and they were able to persuade me that I shouldn’t end this blog. They did this by helping me to think up new ideas for this blog and telling me I should try and make entries out of regular days and that, as long as I enjoy it, I should continue and, as such, that’s what I’m going to do.
    In fact, there were a couple of blog-worthy things that happened today while I was eating my lunch. They always seem to have The Jeremy Kyle Show on the TV in the university’s canteen for some reason, and the episode playing today looked particularly bizarre: it featured a fat version of Derek Acorah who had cheated on one angry woman with another and so these two angry women were arguing with one another. Every time Jeremy asked Fat!Derek to talk one of the angry women would talk for him and he never said a word… Such an odd show. But then I was distracted when some guy left his sandwich box on the table when he was so close to a bin and I thought that was just plain lazy.
    But yes, this entry is just a warning that you shouldn’t expect too much from future entries, but that it will be updated regularly nonetheless. I guess I’ll also use this time to say this: What would you like to read on here? Please comment if there is any subject you’d like me to talk about.