Chris Worfolk's Blog


Student Finance Direct

March 17th, 2007 | Life

I recently got my “you need to re-apply for your student loan” form and so being quite into this whole computer thing and because you get entered into a prize draw for an iPod if you do it online I headed into the interweb to fill out my application form. I tried to log in three times by guessing my password, had my account locked and proceeded to fill out the paper form.

Seriously, there has to be a better way than this? How am I honestly expected to remember my password after a year? It doesn’t appear to have been my commonly used ones. They have some kind of “remind me of my details” thing but do you really want to go through that every time you want to log on? No wonder nobody uses online systems.

The silence in black and white

March 15th, 2007 | Life

They’ve clipped my wings again, torn them apart and then, left me. No use to fly away, to my yesterday, of freedom.

So turns out, just in case there was any doubt that the failure of Monday was my fault, that it completely and utterly is. I went down to speak to events who pointed out that our booking form still said we wanted access at 8pm (which is the time we originally wanted when we were holding a 9pm-2am gig) so they weren’t an hour late on getting the bar open (it’s interesting though that the technician set up at 7pm fine and the bar staff arrived at the time they normally would for a 7pm start). Still it’s enough to officially confirm my classification under failure.

I then headed up to the ARC to get some stuff sorted. To which I found had closed early due to staff illness. Because that’s really what you want to see when you discover you have indeed just bankrupted a society as well as being out of pocket yourself and with an event that requires large amount of funding to be only a few weeks away.

Tensions

March 14th, 2007 | Life

This is a really, really horrible time of year. I have a feeling this is one of those blog posts that is going to be re-drafted several times before eventually being dismissed into the ether without ever being posted.

Everyone is depressed. A lot of people have run out of money, we all have coursework piling up, the days aren’t getting lighter quick enough, whatever the reason is, it’s not a nice atmosphere to be in. As I have previously commented on I am hoping that the Easter holiday will be our salvation.

That said, I’m still in several moods as to what to do with the time. I have plenty of coursework and I could really use some de-stress time but then I also have a growing financial need that probably isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

What I’m really not liking at the moment is the constant ups and downs though. It’s not the first time people are having this massive war on Facebook and then act like there is nothing wrong face to face. I’m probably guilty of it myself but I try not to be. Point and case I called Lee on what he posted about me on news. When I did he said, “that was news, you’ve got to leave it on news.”

There was a big group conversation last night while I was asleep apparently as I found it sitting on my desktop just now in which Phil commented on the tensions. And I quote:

“you want me to reference my notes, your notes, chris’ notes, matt’s general mood, claire’s notes”

I think the most important point to come out here is, my notes are normally like that (notice how I’m not even dignifying the use of the term “notes” rather than “imported blog posts” with a response)! That’s my thing! You’re all invading my turf, I’m the sad depressed emo kid of the group, get your own personality traits hippies!

I feel this is a very disjointed post. I’ve veered off into Easter plans and demarcation. The point is, a lot of The Circle is getting at each other and it’s creating a really bad atmosphere. Of course, the self-analytical bit is the comparatively easy part. Fixing it is the tough problem. Perhaps we can’t actually do anything but weather it and wait for it to fix itself. Still, in the hope of someone having inspiration, suggests into the comments section of my blog please.

The motions part II

March 13th, 2007 | Life

So turns out I am a complete failure and I should just crawl back into the hole I emerged from. Hmm, should have seen that one coming.

The motions part I

March 12th, 2007 | Life

The next 4 hours could well determine whether I can actually make a success out of life or just give up and crawl back into the hole I came from. I feel it reflects how much I have changed at uni to see that despite I’m not optimistic I am actually hoping for the former.

Virgin test

March 12th, 2007 | Life

I just did the whole virginity test and came up 70%. Some of the questions are themselves questionable though. Like have you ever been mistaken for a celebrity? Well no, I am a celebrity! I haven’t been mistaken for another celebrity if that is the question. Most of them are subjective as to their scope anyway. What I did find interesing is other people’s results.

Fan: 60%
Michelle: 42%
Izzy: 32%

Yes that’s right, Michelle is infact closer to Izzy than she is to Fran. By a long, long way :p. Indeed, it would be quite easy to simply round her virginity away given it’s really a 0 or a 1.

Anyway, continuing to pick holes in this test, surely it should be called an innocence test or at very least purity would be a better word. It’s also clearly suffering from a lack of localisation. That said, Wal-Mart do technically own Asda now. Who hasn’t avoided somebody? (Or stalked somebody? ;)). And how can I ever reach a state of complete virginity loss when I can’t get pregnant?

The streets are crawling

March 11th, 2007 | Life

On leaving work I turned my phone on to find I had a text from Michelle seeking adventure. So I headed over to uni and picked up the gang and startedly randomly driving around. Our route formed something along the lines of BP garage, Tesco Seacroft, Temple Newham, home.

There were loads of police about. As well as seeing them on the main roads I went down into Temple Newham and saw two of them on my way to the cark park I was aiming for. When I came to pull out onto the road a car stopped and flashed me out. This set off some alarm bells (as if they weren’t already ringing) and we eventually established it was a police car as they continued to follow me through my estate. I eventually pulled into my drive and they left. It kind of killed the mood though.

I should probably sleep now. My plan to go round to Neil’s and watch Borat (or was that just an excuse to get in to Neil’s house :p) failed despite my less than subtle hints so I think I am going to have to settle for something slightly less amusing as my choice of entertainment to fall to sleep to.

1000 posts

March 11th, 2007 | Life

Hmm, I’m very tempted to use the term “woot.”

Yes indeedy, this is my 1,000th blog post. Go me. Well, 1,000 post on my personal blog anyway. It’s hard to believe I reached 1000 in less than 3 years blogging, it means I’ve been averaging well over a post a day and given I didn’t blog for long periods of time in the first year it means in reality I’ve actually been averaging way more than that for the past 18 months.

Not a bad McClose

March 11th, 2007 | Life

I arrived at work at about 4ish (for my 4 start). Got a missed call at 4:03, by this time I was already in the crew room and got changed which is why I’m presuming I missed the call. I think they were getting worried. You see, Norm had already phoned in to say he wouldn’t be in as he was geniunely ill followed by Amanda phoning in at 3:55 to report an illness of the possibly less geniune type. She was at least the third person that phoned in sick. Worst of all, everyone was out for Craig’s birthday so nobody would come in cover. So on a Saturday when we should have had four people, we had two.

Luckily those two were myself and Neil, half of the Colton Mill all-star closing team. I did front counter close for the first time. You wouldn’t think you could close the counter of a restaurant based almost entirely on guess work but you’d be wrong. Indeed I didn’t think it was possible but with some help from Liz and even a bit from Neil I managed to struggle my way through. Go me.

We were out by 3am which is pretty impressive though we did have plenty of night staff due to pretty much everyone in the restaurant being asked to stay on so we had 2 people till midnight as well as another 3 till 10-11ish. It’s a rare treat to have night staff these days, at least in those sorts of numbers.

The maths is looking good too, 4-3 minus my break results in just over an 10 hour shift, 3 of which hours were on premium rate. I ran the numbers for my various debts and when all things such as my credit card are paid off (not that I have debt on my credit card, they just don’t take the money fast enough) I am about £350 into my overdraft. I don’t think that’s bad for almost the end of the university year but I’d like to try and work my way back up to zero.

Debate Soc

March 9th, 2007 | Life

I turned up to Debate Soc’s show debate with Amnesty International last night accompanied by Norm and Michelle. They were debating closing the borders to immigrants and it turned out to be an interesting debate. It’s quite a technical sport when you get into it, to quote el presidente Felicity who I was later discussing what we could do with the CU debate.

Afterwards we headed down to The Old Bar to be joined by a cast of other wacky characters. To name names, George, Kara, Phil and Sam. Phil managed to annoy the hell out of Sam as part of the impromptu “pick on Sam day” while Michelle continued her mission to get drunk without drinking alcohol. Admittedly it was much less successful than Monday.