Last weekend was the AHS national conference 2009 hosted by Warwick Atheists. It is an interesting setup they have down there, it is a campus university based in the middle of nowhere as most of them are – but most of the students don’t live on campus. That seemed the point of a remote campus university to me but there you go. It’s also not in Warwick, nor in Leamington Spa were we were all staying lol.
We did however get the pleasure of spending some time in Leamington Spa as well as visiting my first 24/7 McDonald’s (though I’m sure most of you can’t really appreciate how exciting that is for me :p ), it’s good to know what where ever you are you can always really on Wetherspoon’s for a cheap pint.
Warwick’s campus was quite nice, they have a great bar there called the Dirty Duck which serves what I can only describe as duck steak – it’s like a full size big steak rather than the breast fillet you get from chickens and was absolutely delicious. They also do a fine carvery which we sampled on the Sunday.
In terms of AHS stuff we now have an exciting new committee with Jenna as president, Adrian as secretary and Stuart as treasurer. A number of other appointments were also made, congratulations to all who got positions! I am stepping down as webmaster as I believe I can better serve the AHS as a trustee so Michael will be taking on the web duties.
All in all the coming year is looking pretty bright for the AHS.
Having been planning to move on Friday I got a call from my letting agent on Thursday informing me that I couldn’t move in as there was a leak somewhere in the building and they couldn’t find out where it was.
Ignoring the fact that they should know who owns the building and thereby get them to fix it or at least get their permission so they could fix it I don’t see it was the end of the world because it’s one of the bedrooms and everything else is unaffected.
But there you go.
So by Monday night our contract was about to run out and all my stuff was still in my current house giving me 5 hours to move all of my stuff (and pack some of it too as I hadn’t had time to disassemble my desktop before Warwick) as well as put the finishing touches to cleaning the house.
Thanks to the help of my parents and Fonze we actually got it done and I am now fully moved out of West Park Place and into another house on Roundhay until my new place is ready. Now I just need to make a start on the sea of boxes so I can actually reach my bed.
I started Wednesday (after work at least) by heading off to the brief staff meeting at Colton Mill before the night out. I wasn’t planning to attend any of it but who could miss the chance to grab a pint with Eric and Felix?
Afterwards I continued on my way over to York for the monthly Brights meetup which is always entertaining if a little sparsely attended and threw arround some very interesting ideas as co-organiser Gilly has some very similar ideas to my own (which is probably a very dangerous thing lol).
Last Tuesday we sat down for our final planning meeting of the academic year as we prepared for the next one. It was a likely to have rather in vain giving we were missing half the committee but never the less with union deadlines arriving we had plenty of items to discuss.
It ended up a rather circular discussion with the odd bit of productive points made but on the whole we just went over the same topics again and again. For 3 hours. Fun stuff.
Monday saw saw myself and Si, along with Sarann, Michelle and Moz head to the Deer Park for one final dinner before we all dispersed.
I don’t think I’ve eaten that much food in a long, long time. Actually when I say a long time it was probably since we went to all you can eat buffet at Spice Quarter for the Atheist Society End of Year Ball but it would well be that I ate even more tonight making my way through loaded jacket skins to start, a full mixed grill for the main course and an ice cream sundae afterwards.
I would feel it was excessive but everyone else ate almost as much. That said I am still letting it settle now lol.
As part of our social life on a budget, we headed out to KFC on Sunday for a spot of dinner, especially given the new wraps are out. I didn’t like have a wrap or anything but I did take a look at the wraps that Craig and Zoe got which I feel was adventurous enough.
Afterwards we headed to The Podger with Craig having a quick pint before heading back home leaving me and Felix to have a far more drawn out one discussing sex, money, rock ‘n roll, etc (at least when he wasn’t flirting with a certain someone else on the phone – the cheek!).
On Friday we headed out from work to grab a few drinks as as I am heading out the door and Darren has only fairly recently arrived at Open Door so we thought it high time we organise some kind of outing to the pub before I left.
Of course a few beers turned into a few more beers (as was the underlying plan when it came down to it 😀 ) until the night began to draw in at which point people started coming up with really silly excuses like “I’m quite ill, on quite a bit of medication for it and I shouldn’t be mixing it with alcohol.” What else should we expect from the cotton wool culture of modern society though?
We ended up with just me, Nick and Dean (my boss and the MD respectively) in the gay district at the bottom of town. Everyone denies they were the one leading us in that direction but we somehow ended up there never the less so decided to head into The Elbow Room which I’ve never actually been in before.
Turns out it’s a rather cool place, it really reminds me of the bar in The O.C. with the indie band playing in the corner and a really laid back attitude in the middle of a sea of over-trendyness that surrounds it. Well worth a visit.
Having left work at about 6 last night I headed off to meet Nicola for the usual Thursday night HAG activities. It was a mildly successful night, there were a few people out so a bit better (or perhaps worse) than last week.
Finally pulled up outside my house at about 9pm when I got a text from Zoe inviting me down to the pub. Of course this left me with no option but to head out again (after all I hadn’t been to the pub since Tuesday at this point!)
It’s tough getting through these long nights but somehow I manage it 😀 .
Last night saw the first of the end of year planning meetings for Atheist Society. It has been a while since we have had a real hardcore planning meeting but last night we bashed out ideas for next year for a solid three hours and will no doubt be doing something similar next week too.
We got plenty of good ideas down and the vision for next year is starting to take shape so it should be another great year for the society (as if we have anything else :p ).
Afterwards we headed down to The Old Bar for the usual Tuesday night social which was well attended given so many people have gone home. Plus George was there so it was basically win win.
On Monday myself and Michelle headed out to the Deer Park to celebrate a number of different things including someone having received her teaching application (this is a landmark achievement for the Royal Mail).
It occured to me though that are days at the Deer Park maybe be looking limited. If you include the fact that I am spending the weekend after next in Warwick for the AHS national conference I only have 9 days left in Roundhay!
I will certainly miss it, there aren’t any overly nice pubs on my door step next year though there are plenty of cheap ones such as the Library and town just a few minutes walk away. In any case though I think a few trips out to the Deer Park at some point may be in order.
