Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Friday was our long awaited house party. Despite an array of individuals being determined to bring the spirit down we never the less partied hard until the early hours even if there was only myself, Liz and George left up at 4am. It seemed to go down a storming success anyway so I’m counting this one as a victory.

I had work on Saturday so we were looking to get out nice and early so I could head over to Nicola’s party. Then just before 11pm Elland Road kicked out from the Kaiser Chiefs gig. So then £15 predicted hour we were supposed to do with our 3 members of staff left on shift ended up as a £160 hour.

Not getting out until 2:30 I headed straight off to find that half the roads between here and Clarence Dock were closed. So having to go on detour after detour and eventually ended up on the far side of where I wanted to be I eventually managed to get there. At which point Nicola didn’t have her phone on her so 4 missed calls and 15 minutes later I headed home.

Sunday I was at work again before Kieran and Matt’s house party. However by the time I got out of work everyone had gone home so I missed out on that as well.

You have deviated from the path of win.

Welcome to fail.

Saturday night was Wendy House’s 10th birthday so having enjoyed some rather nice steak at Maths Chris’s BBQ we did some drinking at Circle Party Central then headed down for some old fashioned Wendy-based fun.

With it being 10 years of Wendy and all they had laid on a special extra room for it. So like the old people we are, we just went to Stylus and spend the entire night there like normal :D. Never the less it was an excellent night – we got there fairly early, as in, before 11 which is fairly unusual for Circle trips to Wendy and didn’t leave till the end (except for a few rubbish losers and Norm).

It was good to hang out with people who aren’t particuarly new faces but people who haven’t really been out at Circle clubbing events before. Indeed, it almost felt like an A-Soc committee meeting in parts with myself, Norm, Nicola, Rosie and Liz as well as ex-social secretary Sarann all in attendance.

Unfortunately because Nicola didn’t make it to the pre-party she wasn’t able to bring my princess costume so I wasn’t able to join in with that one – what a shame huh? :p.

I love the UK.

It’s the only country in the world that can spend almost the entire year moaning about how bad the weather is then as soon as we finally get some sun people are like “awww, it’s too hot.”

To be fair though, it really is too hot to sleep. And I have an exam tomorrow! I need sort of air conditioned server room next year I think.

Having hatched a plot while drinking in The Old Bar on Monday night, myself and Mr. O’Shea arrived at 9:30am Friday morning in LT17, the lecture theatre in which we were due to have our last ever lecture, and indeed, our lecturer, Dr. Nick Efford’s last lecture in SoC also. With such an occasion we obviously had to go out in style.

Soon we had concealed within the desks at the front a laptop and a pair of travel speakers set to run a scheduled task and play an MP3 at 10:25, midway through the lecture. I’m sure you can guess which certain MP3 that was :D. The plan went off without a hitch. Now if only we can find a way to get that live band in for next time…

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?