Today was Lachlan’s birthday so the obvious solution was for everyone to sleighly leave the office, don fancy dress hats and accessories and then go back in singing “happy birthday.” I say obvious, it was certainly successful. This was followed by us heading over to The Box for a few drinks or two at 4:30. 5 hours later and we were all still there.
Given it was Nathan’s first day, we came very closing to telling him that every Thursday was Fancy Dress Thursday but as amusing as that would have been, we decided it was just a little too unfair in the end. Aren’t we nice people 😉 .
Tuesday saw A-Soc hold our 2009/2010 intro meeting. The meeting itself went well if a little poorly attended – well, I saw poorly attended, there were plenty of people there but a lot of them were old faces, it would have been nice to get some more new faces. We seemed to do an excellent job on the conversion rate however so it was far from a loss.
Afterwards we headed down to karaoke. It would seem a fair comment to say I got rather drunk. Rich was threatening not to sing It’s A Sin due to the price of beer required to get him intoxicated, which resulted in me having to buy a bottle of wine between us and that resulted in Rich having to buy one back, and after that I was buying drinks and after that someone else was buying me drinks long after I had convinced Nicola my archers and lemonade was in fact water so by the time I left I couldn’t really see too much and it was 2am.
Then I had to grab some food of course, which was delayed while I chatted to a very attractive randomer about A-Soc and then I had to get home and sober up before I could actually go to sleep as it always ends badily if you don’t. So it was well into the early hours of the morning and even with flexi I still had to be in work for 9:30 the next morning so by the time I made it in I was shattered. I ended up leaving shortly after 4:45 and headed home for a power nap before I could get anything else done.
Of course we managed to get the obligatory group photo and myself and George performed The Eagles’ Hotel California, not that I remember much about doing it, except of course that we completely rocked and for some reason look like we were doing a love duet in the photos.
In any case, a fitting start to the 2009/2010 academic year I think.
The secret is, it never looks good.
I finally made it over to the A-Soc picnic on Woodhouse Moor to find a rather nice turnout and, amusingly, A-Soc members trying to participate in sporting activities 😉 . We spent a while longer in the park chatting before heading over to The Old Bar for what we expected would be a few drinks – 10:30 in the evening, several drinks and a jazz band later and I finally left. Crazy times.
Sunday saw us hit Cuthbert Brodrick as usual for lunch but with one important change – George finally having been paid he could actually afford to eat this time! We also saw a guest appearance from Rich as well so it was a rather good afternoon.
Unfortunately due to a series of iritating events it took them an hour to get me a dessert, which resulted in me being quite late for the A-Soc picnic. They had a new lass working behind the bar who took 20 minutes to serve us and once we had done they lost my dessert and had to make it again!
Friday night saw us to take the street outside the union for all night debate in an attempt to talk to even more students and had out some free hot drinks to people in need of one. It wasn’t as fast moving as it is during Rationalist Week but we got some quite long quality conversations and chatted to some great people so it was well worth it.
Friday saw A-Soc hit Leeds City Museum to take a look round the exhibit, notably the first edition of Origin of Species. We spent a good hour or two looking round the museum before they kicked us out, which is enough time to get round most of the stuff anyway. Unfortunately we forgot to get a group photo on the steps but there will be plenty of other opportunities no doubt.
With the new academic year kicking off, A-Soc spent the week outside the union telling people about the society and trying to drum up new members. While we had some problems with being moved around, staff shortages and the usual problems you have to deal with, the week was overall rather successful and we signed up plenty of new members.
Myself and George hit The Old Bar last night. It was a somewhat sobering experience, which was useful given I was driving, but never the less unwelcome reminder that we’re getting on a bit.
I didn’t leave my previous engagement until 9:30, which resulted in me getting to the union at 9:45, which I thought was rather late to be hitting the pub. Never the less it was dead in The Old Bar. I mean, there were a fair few people but few enough to allow everyone to get a seat and after all it’s freshers’ week – you would expect it to be rammed.
After a few drinks we headed off a little after 11 – at which point hordes of people began arriving in the bar. Granted I still had two hours of work to do when I got home so it wasn’t like I was going home to bed, but there can be little doubt it’s a sign of the inevitable aging of the class of ’08.
I feel opening my blog post with a statement regarding the fact that last night was the third leaving do I had attended in the three months I have worked in this company of about a dozen of us would give the wrong impression. Contrary to what the Wikipedia article says, Rob doesn’t beat any of his employees with a cricket bat, or any sporting implement for that matter.
However we are a company of dynamic young go-getters as Mike describes us and are drawn in from all around the world. Nicolas is one such individual who later this month will be returning to France and so last night we headed over to Salvo’s for a farewell meal.
I can’t say I enjoyed the food which was some form of Italian tapas which I found strange, though with plenty of small courses it wasn’t too much of a problem as the food you didn’t like was soon replaced by a whole new dish.
