Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Seriously, who are Circle Theatre Tricks? Because I’ve never heard of them. Yet they have the best publicity on campus. Apparently.

Still, Friday night saw us hit Fruity. It was quite good to work the stress out after having driven down the M1, had a job interview and driven back on the M1. How do people not die on that road?

Yesterday saw my first job interview in a long time.

Despite my title, it was actually the most relaxed interview we’ve ever done. It felt more like a conversation than an interview. And while I really don’t know how to gauge how well it went, I’m told the fact that it lasted an hour and 15 minutes is a good sign. But I guess we will have to wait and see. The job looks really good at least.

I have another one tomorrow which should be interesting. If I can find it lol.

You wouldn’t think having not driven for a week except having spent an entire week driving a van would make you feel so different when getting back into a car, but you would be wrong.

I got back into my Mondeo yesterday having not driven anything for three weeks except for the Rationalist Week van and it was a mightily strange experience.

First of all, you feel so low on the ground. The van is up high, you tower over other cars. Secondly having been sat upright in the van I now feel like I am almost lying backwards. The two factors coupled together almost make you feel like you are driving a formula one racing car.

It’s weird readjusting too. The biting point is different, I have a petrol engine that actually needs revving to get any power once again and I can actually see out of the back of the vehicle. It’s mad.

I opened my curtains this morning.

That is a big event.

Not the act itself, but what it represents. For the first time in about two weeks I was doing something offer than arriving home, going to bed, getting up and going to uni. I normally go quite a while between opening my curtains (it generally happens once or twice a week at best) because I’m so busy normally but recently it’s been over 2 weeks since I have had them open.

That having been said, I’m a little disappointed that the weight has not really been lifted off my shoulders. I still have huge amounts of work to do and a to-do list trailing onto three pages. Plus exam revision starts soon, then working at whatever job I take. Maybe there is no magical break coming in the next few months, do we actually have to wait to retirement now?

Still, who cares, I actually feel rested for the first time in ages having spend 7 and a half hours in the pub yesterday and slept for a good 10 hours this morning. Good times.

Previously
Liz’s grandad was taken into hospital so Liz had to miss the start of the week because she was in Lincoln.

The marquee hire company said they can’t get a team together to put the marquee up on Sunday so we’re going to have to re-arrange plans. They do however say they will be there at 6am Monday morning. Fantastic, with a long day ahead of us we really want to be up that early.

I tried to book a van but they secretly charge you double as a deposit and so it actually cost me more than my available balance on my credit card and therefore my credit card company rejected it. So I had to make other arrangements for paying for it.

The hoodies cover whatever t-shirt you are wearing in fluff.

Saturday
Norm comes down ill.

We arrive at the van hire place having already paid for the van to find out that TJS Hire, the branch we were at don’t have insurance for under 25s. Even though Sixt said it was fine. So they can’t give us the van.

So I drag an ill Norm out of bed to get me the phone number for Self Drive Solutions. I phone them and ask them for a van today. The guy says he will try and get me one and ring me back in 2 minutes. A few minutes later TJS get a phone call asking if they can do a van for a week starting today. Yep, because Self Drive went through Mayday who went through Sixt who then called TJS Hire. So we ended up with the exact same van but paying like a hundred pounds more for it. The exact same van.

We then head off to the generator hire place to find they are closed. I phoned up and was told they were open till 4pm but they are closed. And the computer system has been closed down for the day. So they can’t do anything.

Sunday
We meet to set everything up. But we can’t decorate the marquee because it hasn’t arrived yet. We can’t put the other tent up because it’s raining. We can’t test the generator because we haven’t got it yet. We can’t test the heater or PA system because they need power. We can do the various staff briefings but half the staff are missing. We head off to poster Roger Stevens but it’s locked.

We decide to fold all the leaflets up. But they haven’t been printed yet. I’ve run out of SoC printer credits. So I go to an ISS cluster. Except ISS don’t have Publisher so I can’t print it normally and I can’t export it to images on my laptop and transfer it over via USB because then it won’t be double sided. Which is all fairly irrelevant given both myself and Norm are running low on ISS printer credits anyway as it turns out (where are all mine?!?).

Monday
It rained a lot. And hailed. Heavily.

It turns out our fuel containers have cracks in them so we have to alter the plan for the day to include buying some new ones. Because our time and money budgets aren’t quite shot enough.

Myself and Norm arrived on site at 6am ready for the marquee hire company to arrive at that time as they said they would. They turn up at 8:30. Suprisingly enough, they don’t get it up by the 9am deadline promised.

In the mean time we aren’t doing much because there are pieces missing from the other tent so we have to wait for Paul to arrive with the other of last year’s tent so we can get parts from that. Meanwhile I go to pick up the generator which turns out to be even more complicated to get out of the van than we thought so just to get the thing out takes 15-20 minutes.

The wind destroyed the generator tent and I mean destroyed. It broke the metal poles. So the generator shelter is just a plastic sheet pegged over it.

Tuesday
It rained on and off all day including some hail.

We had a cash discrepancy at the end of the night.

Nicola was ill for a second day.

Norm had to miss the end of Mike Lake’s talk because Michelle had stolen him for the evening because she had booked her flights incorrectly.

Conclusion
Are you really still trying to sell me on the idea that a benevolent god exists?

It’s been a busy few days.

Friday: 15
Thursday: 14
Wednesday: 13

I couldn’t say before this date as my call log doesn’t go back that far (I only knew Wednesday’s because I already knew the figure, half the calls have already moved off the list).

Yeah, organising things is fun.

Having pretty much finished the first draft of my FYP on Friday I made a few tweaks to it today and handed it in to my supervisor to have a look over.

This should probably be a time for celebration but given I need to do some more work on it as well as sort everything out for Rationalist Week and do my AI23 coursework I’m not really celebrating. Not because I think I shouldn’t but because I just don’t feel any different from having handed it in.

I mean, it’s 2am, I’m tired and I’m going to bed. But not to sleep. I’m taking work to bed again. Somehow curling up in a nice warm bed isn’t quite the same when you know you’re going to spend the next hour starring at a laptop screen trying to get some work done.

So A-Soc still has no money. We’ve spent a lot of it but we don’t have any. Any chance of getting sponsorship is all but gone we’re in a deep financial mess.

Meanwhile I found out yesterday that Michelle has stolen Norm on the Tuesday night. So he will miss Mike Lake, not that Mike Lake has a confirmed topic to speak on yet.

Oh and the marquee hire company got back to us this morning to say they couldn’t get a crew to put the tent up on Sunday so they are doing it Monday morning. Despite the fact we are all meeting on Sunday to decorate the tent. Indeed I booked the weekend off work (at considerable cost to myself) to do just that.

I could go on. I could talk about how we don’t even have a generator booked yet because the hire company haven’t got back to me and a list of hundreds of people who have failed to return my emails. But I’ll save that for a later blog post.

Just when you’re down enough there is always something to give you that little extra kick.

Went round drive-thru this evening to find that meals have gone up £0.30 as well as having gone up £0.50 on breakfast!

With my phone out of commission I was going to have to rely on my old phone. Oh wait, no, the browser doesn’t work on that.

Not that it matters that I can’t evaluate my software as having just failed my GI coursework I’ve pretty much dug my own grave anyway.

And don’t even get me started on A-Soc…