Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Having been desperate to avoid work over the holidays and I took an hour out over Christmas to draw up this post leaving me with only the events that took place in the last few days to add. Given this you would think I could manage to get it out on the 1st, but apparently not. In any case, 2008 is now well and truely over and we move another step closer to there being another decade between when I was born and where we are now. So here it is…

Is it really this time again? Actually I don’t remember the end of 2007 so I don’t really know how long it feels like. I think I spent it working after having severe problems on New Year’s Eve. Still, hopefully this year’s festivities will prove to be a bit better, wherever I end up being. In any case, the year’s end seems a good time to ponder over what’s happened this year.

Interestingly enough, nothing happened in January. Jack left which was quite sad and something that is hard to believe it’s been a year since. Still, I’ll make it to Australia one day!

Meanwhile February saw our Darwin Day celebration, amusingly enough just a week or so after Mission Week. Indeed such competition between philosophies (or possibly natural processes) caused an earthquake.

It snowed in March, which Michelle was at hope ironically enough. The School of Computing agreed to rename to the Chris Worfolk Institute of Computing Excellence and Fonze drank himself into A&E. Good times.

Of course, things really got interesting in April. The main reason, obviously, was the massive festival of free thought that was Rationalist Week 2008. What a week, what an amazing week. Though there was also the small matter of finishing my FYP.

In constrast, May was a month of fun. I did the Summer Ball, Atheist Society Ball and saw Avril Lavigne live at the M.E.N. It wasn’t all fun though, I found out I failed my FYP and started interviewing again though that would be the job I would eventually go on to take.

There were ups and downs in June, I found out I failed my degree and started work though I also bought my car and travelled up to Edinburgh to co-found the AHS.

Summer truely having arrived, July was a month of changes. We properly moved into our new house and followed it up with a suitable house warming and now that we live in the suburbs dinner party. Many of us went through graduation.

Thanks to summer being rained off, August was a very empty month. Atheist Society continued to do very well and the It’s Only Water campaign was launched but nothing overly exciting.

In constrast September saw quite a bit of cool stuff going on. Freshers’ Week arrived along with my rather successful dinner party for eighteen, Norm came out of the closet, my podcast officially launched and started to grow from strength to strength.

Following on from this, October was a busy month too, I turned 22 during the infamous chicken brain incident, the Atheist Bus Campaign hit the scene, I delivered my first proper talk of the academic year to Atheist Society with out new, suitably enlarged audience, went speed dating, led a church service and held the first meeting of Pro Life Through Pro Choice.

If October was a month of many events, November was a month of big events. Apart from Obama being elected, Atheist Society held it’s very successful interfaith panel and started it’s live webcasts. I travelled to Bradford to meet Peter Cave, Leeds hosted the second national AHS conference and we took 22 people down to London for our annual Weekend Away.

Finally you should really be able to remember December but it included many firsts for Atheist Society including our first sports night and our first Thursday Night Dogging. I also took my first ever sick day from work. Atheist Society continued to do well with 17 people attending our Winter Solstice meal and we even good a good attendance to our Christmas Day meal as well as fun down in Tamworth at the AHS festive party. Things finally came to a close with our New Year’s Eve party.

Well, that’s it, 2008 in a nutshell. Extensively cherry-picked to miss out all the events that really mattered to you and inclusive of events few people really cared out. But there you go, hopefully, 2009 will be even more interesting.

The New Year’s Eve party having got a little bigger than the Facebook guest list would suggest, I suggested to Si and Kieran that we go for a bit more of a relaxed drink on Friday at our favourite local watering hole, the Deer Park.

It almost snowballed out of control again, having invited my housemates and then Kate having text me to see what was going on, though in the end it was just five of us which is a perfectly managable number. I also had somewhat of a challenge with the organisation given I was still at a wedding when it started and so was organisating from the other side of town.

Still it turned into quite a pleasant night with us staying till well after time had been called.

Oh. My. God.

Last night was a strange night. Luckily I wasn’t the only one not drinking and so I had Si, as well as Fonze and Sophie, to keep me company in the sober corner. I had some quite good few chats, particuarly while outside where Kieran was kindly sharing out some fine Cuban cigars.

Michelle probably had the wildest night, reaching new heights in appropriate text messages which I shall not discuss here. I will discuss however the events that followed, namely Michelle hooking up with Greg and the two spending the night together (despite Michelle’s attempt to hide him when Sarann and Liz arrived at the door). I have no idea what happened while they were in the bedroom together though given Michelle’s antics at last year’s new year’s celebrations, I think we can all imagine the general trend of activities!

Sarann was determind to prove that I am massively unhappy and that this emotional state could be altered in some way, explaining that she would “do anything” and adding that “I won’t tell Moz” so who knows what the offer entailed.

The night some what culminated in a semi-naked communal shower involving Norm, Michelle, Sarann, Greg, Nicola, Miriam and Anne which resulted in Michelle smashing up the bathroom and causing water to come pouring through the lounge ceiling. Suprisingly enough such trouble can be traced back to Miss Jackson who as well as smashing her way through the usual glasses also managed to smash up some plates too.

The morning after was the usual plan – down to the Deer Park for some Recovery Steak because it is always a good idea. Everyone was feeling a little worse for wear though luckily I have all day to recover before my next party!

The signs that I am getting older are coming thick and fast these days. If it wasn’t bad enough that I moved my alarm forward to 7:30am or went down to London tools up with a hat, scarf and gloves because I can no longer go out in the middle of Winter wearing nothing but a thin shirt, I’ve now gone another step further and bought a diary to plan my time.

Unfortunately the combination of the calendar on my phone and Facebook events just isn’t cutting it anymore. Plus I’m still very much a fan of the old pen and paper system, it almost certainly still has it’s place in modern day life. Plus with the AHS and Skeptics in the Pub kicking off and me generally having a life outside of A-Soc (even if they are directly A-Soc related) I felt it was time to take the plunge.

We dropped by Tesco on Boxing Day to pick up some bread. It was rather busy because while apparently the whole of Leeds was at Tesco on Christmas Eve, they can’t go a whole day with the supermarket closed and so need to get straight back in there the day after.

Turns out though that there isn’t much point visiting Tesco on Boxing Day because they don’t really stock food anymore…

I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Pet Shop Boys recently, if only so I know how to keep Rich happy on Wednesday. Anyways…

After a moderate days work and having done my technical wizardry to help my uncle sort his network problems out, I headed off to meet everyone for the usual Sunday jaunt. Tension aside it was the usual night of good fun though because it’s holiday periods Xscape was rather busy – it took us 30 minutes to get a lane, we could only get one between the nine of us and only get one game in. But I don’t care too much as I don’t really go for the bowling.

Afterwards things got a little crazy though. Becky went for KFC! Not McDonalds, but KFC! I mean, that’s just insane. That’s now how Sunday nights work. These are crazy times we’re living in, crazy times…

As you probably noticed, yesterday was Christmas Day.

I quite enjoyed it to be honest. For the first time in, well, possibly ever, I didn’t have to get up that early. When I did I headed round to my parents for Christmas dinner which was excellent as always. I spent a few hours with the family which is perfect in terms of a managable amount of time and then headed off back home in the evening for Christmas dinner at my house.

Norm wasn’t working after all so had very kindly agreed to cook the dinner which made things even easier as I pretty much just rolled up, did a bit of tidying and that’s about it. In the end there were six of us which is a good number in terms of being able to cater easily enough while still having a good group there. So all in all, a good day.

Having arrived at the pub quiz on Sunday after much nagging to get there asap, I was pleasantly suprised to find Zoe was dishing out Christmas presents (no wonder they get coined my real friends 😉 ). I can’t help feeling her mind is a little too devilish though… 😀

Having being partying for three nights in a row, I managed to pull myself out of bed in time for Christmas dinner which had been skillfully cooked by my housemates. It was a nice meal indeed and featured all the expected trimmings laid out with a set of plates and table dressings kindly proved by Norm’s mum.

Having spent three hours eating and a can of 24 later I headed upstairs to squeeze in the normal Sunday workload (which unfortunately is still going but I have some free time to catch up on Thursday lol) before heading out to my mum’s birthday shindig at 7:30.

It turns out my mum is rather popular. I thought I did well getting 19 people out to my birthday do on a Sunday but apparently, I was very much beaten by the 20-30 people that turned up to the pub to wish my mum a happy birthday.

Finally having spent a few hours catching up with friends and family there I dashed over to the Crusader to catch the end of the pub quiz and arrived just in time to find everyone leaving. But no worries as it just meant moving on to get food so all was not lost. In the end, I ended up getting to bed at a reasonable time too, not bad for such a packed day.

Having driven back up to Leeds on Saturday we set about preparing for a house party of our own to celebrate Liz and Sarann’s birthday (to which the latter is today, happy birthday Sarann!). As to be expected it was a night of drunk antics enjoyed by all who attended.

Importantly, the night included chicken. Kate mentioned that her Nando’s voucher, from when she found a brain in her chicken, expired in a few days so we headed over to Nando’s to get some take-out, which it turns out, they do indeed do.

It seems to be becoming somewhat of a tradition to go out and get chicken as our previous house party saw myself and Kieran disappear off to get KFC. I have to say, it’s a tradition I could certainly get used to.