GenesisDreams

Glorious Saturday Afternoon

Friends - Fun - Personal - Quotes It's amazing to think how much has happened this last year. Exactly one year and one day ago today was the Summer Party 2004 to mark the end of the University year and the official start to student summer (you can read all about what we got up to this time last year in this entry). Well now is Summer Party 2005, and the lot of us, older and wiser, went down early with a disposal BBQ, lots of meat and beer, and camped out on the downs in the glorious sun, and sat off listening to music and having a great time. Karl Kennedy from Neighbours was the "special mystery guest" and he was there with his band playing covers of oasis songs. It was a glorious afternoon. We didn't stay for the whole night (having learnt what a disappointment that was last year), but instead lazed around in the sun having a great time. It's still light out now as I am writing this, and it's wonderfully warm. So we were talking about how much we had all changed since last year and everyone (excluding me the old, responsible, working man) was amazed to think that this time next year they would be finished uni. The topic jumped back and forward between the past and the future. Where everyone thought they would be heading after Uni, where was the best place we travelled to last summer, what was everyone’s plans for this summer, when did we all meet each other originally. Maybe because I am such and old man, and am still looking at it from a semi-outsider perspective, but it was startling to me how much everyone had changed and grown up in the last year. We were playing spot the first years, and I couldn't fathom that everyone with me was a first year just a year ago. They seemed so different. We all grown and change constantly through life, but I think that one of the most pivotal periods is your life is that first year after highschool, when you leave the security of school and enter the real world. I feel lucky to have been privileged enough to be a part of that year for all of my friends here. They are such fantastic people, fantastic friends, and I've really missed them all these past couple of months when we've been apart. I've been lucky like that all through life now that I think about it. Other that a few rare instances I've always had fantastic friends who I get on well with and trust and respect. They have provided support, comfort, jokes and fun. I can just sit and hang out with them all day doing nothing much at all, I can travel to exotic places with them, I can rant and vent to them when I'm stressed, I can rant and rave to them when I'm in love. My friends have been there for me, with me, though so much. I miss you guys, wherever you are in the world. Friends in the US I've never met personally but whom I've told everything to. Friends back in Aus that I left behind. Friends here in my new home, who I don't get to see enough of. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend. - Albert Camus Thanks again for The Fall Al. It really meant a lot to me. Written while lying on Nikkie's bed, while she studies for her final physio exam, listening to her sing along to U2's greatest hits. Nikkie is my closest confidant, a fantastic, thoughtful, caring, and wonderful friend. I love her more than the world. I am the luckiest.

Partyhouse - Reunited

Friends - Fun - Personal The partyhouse crew were fully reunited last night in what must be the first time in almost 4 months. We've all gone separately ways recently. Nikkie has moved out and is not living on the other side of Nottingham. Graeme is changing courses and having taken the rest of this term off, is living up in Liverpool. I've started full time work, so I'm up in Liverpool, and that just left Viki, Bruce and Ben in this big old house. There had been exams for the last couple of weeks and everyone was really stressed, but now they are all done (except for poor Nikkie who has one more next week). With the newfound freedom from stress we all converged again on the partyhouse to do what the party house crew are famous for, partying! ^_^ So Graeme and I left work early Friday afternoon and started the drive down to Nottingham. It was a sunny and hot 21 degrees (which is really good for England springtime) and we cruised down the motorway listening to radio one and chatting about how much we missed all being together. Graeme had previous been to the butcher, so we had 12 hamburgers, 12 sausages and 12 lamb kebabs. Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm. After arriving into Nottingham we went to pick up some beer, and then the six of us sat off in the sun in the backyard, drinking and catching up. I took responsibility for cooking the food on the BBQ, having as my mates claim, an innate skill due to my Aussie heritage. Anyway along with all the copious amounts of meat I also cooked some of my patented beer onions, which went down a treat. Viki put her computer speakers out the window and we have some great summer trance pumping out over the garden. We all sat around, eating our food, drinking our beer and wine, and having a great time. It stayed light till almost 10pm, and when it eventually got dark we scavenged all the wood and cardboard we could find and made a fire in the middle of the backyard. We talked and drank and played with the fire and talked some more. Some people smoked a little too. I love these guys; they are a fantastic group of friends. The conversation never lagged, the jokes always kept coming, the funny stories were never lacking. We talked about the coming summer, and the previous one. We talked about plans, and goals and dreams. We gossiped of course, and talked about sex and guys and girls. Everyone got very drunk. I can’t remember the last time I was that drunk, and I can’t remember ever seeing Nikkie that drunk before either. She is a very cute drunk ^_^ At about 4am the sun was starting to come up again and the birds were chirping. We all took that as the signal to go to bed. I fell asleep with the with windows open, the cool morning breeze wafting into the room, and the beautiful girl that I love in my arms. I’ve never been happier. I get by with a little help from my friends, I get high with a little help from my friends, Going to try with a little help from my friends. Written while listening to The Beatles - With a Little Help From My Friends.

European Champions!

Fun - Games Last night Liverpool FC won the Champions League in an amazing comeback after being 3-0 down at half time. The atmosphere was incredible and everyone was on the end of their seats when after 90 minutes of normal time, and 30 minutes of extra time, Liverpool were level with AC Milan at 3 all. It came down to penalties and Liverpool's keeper did a fantastic job, saving a number of goals and leading the team through to victory! Wow and this town certainly knows how to party. Anyway, I now have internet and a phone line at my flat, and I'm writing this with a slight headache, 10 minutes before I have to head off to work, so I had better go and get ready! Take care everyone!

Late Night

Work It's 9PM and I'm still at work. Arrgghh! I am turning into Fragma! ^_^

Another Week

Friends - Fun So it's Sunday night. I'm leaving to go back up to Liverpool tomorrow. It's been a great weekend. Star wars was great. Fantastic. Nikkie and I had the job of trying to secure 12 seats of the birthday party of 6 year olds that were due to show up. We managed nine, which I thought was pretty bloody good considering the cinema was absolutely packed and we are to fight hordes of people off. Anyway it's late and so I am not going to write much more. I've got another long week of work ahead of me. This is my life now, and I'm enjoying every second of it. Written while listening to all of Muse's Showbiz album, blaring out of Nikkie's PC.

May The Force Be With You

Friends - Fun - Movies - Work I came down to Nottingham from Liverpool last night. This last week of work has been exhausting. I've been running around doing so much stuff. It's really exciting, there has been so much going on and I've been in the tick of it. I've really enjoyed working hard again, I don't even think twice about working through lunch or late I'm that involved and interested in making sure everything comes out as it should. So I had a very fun reunion with Nikkie last night, then a nice long sleep in. I really needed it. Now we are both getting ready to drive down to Milton Keynes to visit my cousin. It's her little boy Jacob's birthday today and we are all going to see the new Star Wars movie. Then we are staying the night at my cousin's place with some other of their friends before coming back down to Notts. It's going to be a busy weekend, and I've got another hectic week of work after it, but you know what, this is what I want to be doing, and I couldn't be happier! Take care everyone!

Site Survey Mark III

Travel - Work I seem to be writing a lot more of late. I credit my new notebook. I love my new baby. It's so slim and light. So I went out to Wolverhampton today. I'd never been there before, and really there isn't much there to make me want to visit again. I had to to yet another site survey, this time on a much larger scale. I spent most of the morning sitting talking to the CFO about the current operation. The CFO! I mean who the hell am I? Here I am discussing upgrade plans and future rollouts with him as if I actually know what the hell I'm talking about and that my say has any value at all in the discussion, and he is listening to me! And you know what, after the first ten minutes or so I no longer felt completely in over my head. It was a good feeling. Today was a good day. Now I'm sitting in Nikkie's bed typing this, while she is on her computer finishing up one of her essays. I should be finishing up the one I'm working on, but I thought it was about time to take a bit of a time out. Nikkie has Oasis playing on her computer. I love this band.

Productive Weekends

Fun - Work Nikkie and I are sat at our respective laptops, at the kitchen table of her house, being productive and doing work. She is writing her interprofessional learning essay and I am helping put together one of her management essays. I didn't realise until now how much is involoved in physiotherapy apart from leraning the anatomy and treatment techniquies. I can't help her with all of that, but at least with her professional practice stuff I can help by providing her with mainstream management theory that complements her phsyio management theory. We've had a very productive weekend actually. I'm surprised at how much work we have actually gotten done. Friday night we went to bed early. ^_^ Saturday morning we got up late. ^_^ ^_^ Satuday we caught up with our friends at our old house, and did a little bit of work in the afternoon. Saturday night we went out for dinner and drinks, and today we have been into town, gone shopping, and are back early enough to get lots more work done. If we get enough done now we can probably go to bed early again tonight ^_^ ^_^ ^_^

Time On Trains

Friends - Fun - Personal - Work I am on the train yet again. I think this past month I’ve clocked up at least 30 hours travel time on trains. Another month of this and I’ll be pushing for a company car! This month I pushed for a new laptop, which is why I am now able to write blog entries while on the train! For some reason I failed to mention that when explaining why I needed one ^_^ I just left Liverpool and am currently heading down to Nottingham. The trip takes two and a half hours, so I’ll get down to Nottingham just as Nikkie finishes work. I haven’t seen Nikkie since I saw here off at Liverpool station last Sunday. I miss her really badly. Of course I’ve talked to her every night, and sent countless text messages, but it’s just not the same. I need to be around her, to touch her, to hug her, to smell her. I feel so alive when I’m with her, when she is there the world just seems that much brighter. It’s been hard this last week without her. I can’t wait until the train pulls into Nottingham. Nikkie is coming to pick me up, and I know that as soon as I step off the train and see her everything is going to be alright. She will fall into my arms, and I’ll hold her tightly, and all my worries will disappear. I’m getting broadband and a phone line installed at my flat next week. The plan I’m getting includes unlimited weekend and evening calls, so I can chat to Nikkie after work for as long as I want. I’m also going to get a webcam set up so that I can see her during the week. Hopefully these things will help keep the loneliness at bay when she is not around. So I have the entire weekend with Nikkie, which is fantastic, but not only that, I’ve organised to do a site visit in Wolverhampton on Monday, which means I can stay in Nottingham Sunday night, do the site visit Monday, return to Nottingham Monday night, then head back up to Liverpool Tuesday morning. Then that leaves only three nights before the next Friday when I get to see her again! It is only a two and a half hours to Nottingham, so if I’m having a particular hard week and I always head down after work, spend the night with her, then head back up early the following morning. It is going to be hard being apart from her most of the week, but, and I’m going to say it here because frankly I don’t care who knows, I’m completely, utterly, and madly in love with this girl, and so I know it will all work out in the end. Anyway, so I feel very professional sitting here in my business clothes, typing away on my laptop. It’s a far cry from the sloppy university student I was just a couple of months ago. At first I didn’t really think I would like this job, but over the last couple of weeks I’ve taken on so much responsibility and done such a variety of things that I now think I am really going to enjoy it. I’m scheduling jobs, managing projects, doing technical work, getting training, going to meetings, doing designs, making decisions. It’s all interesting work, some of it is really cool and exciting, in particular the military contract we are bidding for, which hopefully will get signed off early next week. I know I am going to learn a lot here, and I’m getting paid really well for it too! So you can’t argue with that! I am often asked why my long-term plans are, whether I am just doing this temporarily, or whether I am here for good. My answer to that question has changed dramatically over the last six months. I’ve got a great job, nice flat, good friends and a fantastic girlfriend. I get to party in London, one of the most lively and exciting cities in the world, at least once a month. I get to pop over to an entirely different country for a dirty weekend. I have my some of my family, my cousins, very close by, whom I know I can always rely on. Ok the weather here is crap, but you can’t have everything! I have talked to the rest of my family about this; I’ve talked to my close friends about it too. I don’t intend on moving back to Australia in the near future. To be even more specific, I want to live and work here for at least five years. Long enough to have saved up a very respectable amount (in pounds too!), but even more importantly, long enough for me to get my permanent residency and citizenship. I’ve lived in the U.K. for almost a year and a half now, and I know that I want to always be able to return if I desire. The hassles I’ve had to go through with getting working permits and visas is just too much, I want to be naturalised, have dual citizenship, British and Australian. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever come back home to the land down under, just that I want to be able to make either place my home. So I think I’ve written enough for one afternoon. I’ll post this tonight when I get to Nikkie’s. Sorry if I rambled a bit, I get quite reflective whenever I spend long periods of time on trains. I wrote this while listening to DJ Doboy Trancquility 17. It’s the only MP3 I have on my phone at the moment other than Pimsler Japanese lessons and I haven’t gotten around to downloading any songs onto my new laptop yet.

Working Hard For The Money

Friends - Fun - Travel - Work So as seems usual of late I have left it a good couple of weeks before writing a proper entry. Well I've been working hard, so nah nah nah! ^_^ On Tuesday last week I came up to Liverpool to do some work. I sat in on a very interesting meeting, learnt heaps of stuff, and in that one morning knew that I would enjoy my time at this job. Wednesday I took the day out to go shopping with Graeme, we were buying furniture for my new flat. Thursday John and I were off to London. We were doing some thermal imaging work for the Kings College Hospital, which would take all of Thursday and Friday. We stayed in a hotel just down from the hospital and went out for drinks and dinner on the company's expense account after a hard days work. The thermal camera was really cool; check out my self-portrait in the previous post. Friday night we helped pack up the house of one of the guys who is moving up to Liverpool for this big contract we are getting. Geoff is going to be the new IT Director, and after loading all his stuff into the van we went out for a few pints to recover. Saturday involved driving back up to Liverpool from London and unpacking the truck. Thankfully I convinced John that we should swing by Nottingham on the way up, so we did and picked up Nikkie and a bunch of my stuff. I hadn't seen Nikkie since the previous Monday, so it was very difficult to sit in the truck and keep my hands off her ^_^ So we helped move Geoff in on Saturday. He is living in the most fantastic place on the water here in Liverpool. His flat is on the top floor of the mansion that the captain of the Titanic once lived in. So very cool. My flat pales in comparison, but Nikkie thought it was great all the same, and we moved all my stuff in that day too. Saturday night we spent at my cousin’s catching up, drinking beer and wine and playing pictionary. My cousin and his wife are the undisputed king and queen of pictionary, they usually make it the whole way around the board before you even get out of the first quarter. However this night something must have been in the air because Nikkie and I actually mounted a serious challenge and one of the games came down to sudden death when we were both on the all-play square at the end of the board. Sunday we went to the Oxton Village fair, ate Cornish pasties and watched a Punch and Judy show. Then it was almost time for Nikkie to leave. She is still on placement at the Queens Medical Centre and so had to leave to go back to Nottingham to be ready for her 8.30 start Monday morning. I hated seeing her go. It was hard the previous week being away from her, but because I was so busy running up and down the country the time seemed to pass really quickly. Now she is gone however and I'm aching deep inside. It’s only Wednesday. I'm leaving Friday afternoon to go down to Nottingham for the weekend, but that is still two nights away! I've been keeping myself busy, not trying to be alone in my big flat at nights, but is has been hard. Went drinking with Geoff, Graeme and Paul the last couple of nights, so that has kept me occupied (and Nikkie amused when I ring he at midnight drunk out of my mind). Still I'll have to face my empty flat eventually, and all I can do is think about wanting to be down with Nikkie. Anyway I'll be down there this weekend, have Friday, Saturday and Sunday together. The boss said it doesn't matter if I don’t come in until mid-morning Monday, so I'll get the train up from Nottingham early in the morning. Things are good for me right now. Nikkie is fantastic, but that’s a given, I don’t think she knows how to not be fantastic and lovely and sexy and perfect. The job is interesting, the money is good, the social side of it up here in Liverpool is much better than I expected. All over everything has worked out far better than I had ever hoped to dream. The only down side is the Nikkie is in Nottingham and I am in Liverpool. But it is only another month and a half till her summer break, and then she is coming up here to live with me for the summer, get a job during the days but be with me when we both finish work. It’s going to be awesome, the sun, the sand (oh did I mention my flat is 5 minutes walk from the beach), money in my pocket and my beautiful girl by my side.

Hot Body

Work Well things have been hectic as usual, so I haven't had the time to update much recently. I am in at work right now, after having done some thermal imaging stuff down in London last week. Check out my Hot Body!

Doctors And Housewives

Television Ok so I thought that, considering my lack of updates recently, I would write a short entry covering my recent television watching habits. So firstly, New Doctor Who! It screens on Saturdays nights here and is up to the sixth episode, when the Daleks are back!! I really like the new Doctor, he is hip and funny and cool. Billie Piper is not bad as his assistant too. It's got the same old storylines which are cheesy but classic, however there is also this new cool underlying "time war" thread which I haven't heard of before which sounds very interesting. I'm definitely going to follow the rest of this series. I've also started watching Desperate Housewives. It had heard all the hype, so decided to check it out. I really like the dark humour to it, my style of humour. Of course then there is season 4 of 24, which is fantastic as always. This last episode was awesome. Bringing back old faces and keeping things exciting. Season 2 of the OC has lagged a bit with the last couple of episodes, but now that Ryan’s brother is on the scene again things have really picked up. I've also been watching random episodes of The West Wing, plus keeping up to date on Initial D Stage 4!

Here, There, Everywhere

Friends - Fun - Travel - Work So it’s been two weeks since I last wrote an entry. Here is a quick summary of what I’ve been up to. After my week at work up in Liverpool I got the train down to High Wycombe, about 30 minutes outside of London, where Nikkie’s parents live. Nikkie had gone down to stay with them while I was up in Liverpool working, and had decided to stay longer, so I went down there to stay with them. So I went down on the Friday afternoon and ended up staying till the following Thursday. It was a lot more fun that I expected. Nikkie’s parents are really nice and her little sister is as well. It felt very comfortable there, like I belonged and was accepted. We went into London on the Monday, went to the Portobello Road markets and the Covent Garden markets. Nikkie was very good and resisted buying shoes and handbags. It was a great day, the weather was beautiful, my girlfriend looked stunning, I couldn’t have been any happier. So the week went by incredibly quickly, I was having a load of fun, and then, suddenly, we were back up in Nottingham. Bruce and Ben and Viki were all back in the house. It was good to see them after so long. Easter holidays were drawing to a close and everyone had to get back to study. The next week Nikkie was on placement, and I had to do some work around the country. I needed to do some site surveys for a project we are working on, so on Wednesday I got the train down to London and did a survey out in Enfield, and then Wednesday night I crashed at Anna’s place. She made dinner and we sat around drinking wine in her apartment overlooking the Thames and discussing politics, sex and whether a bear could beat a giant squid in a fight. The next morning I got the train down to Southampton to do another site survey. Thankfully this one didn’t take as long (I was checking this site against the same criteria as the pervious one, so I knew what I was looking for and it went much quicker) and I ended up getting back to Nottingham at 6pm. Over those two days I had spent about 10 hours on trains going to different places, but it was interesting work, and it meant that I could stay in Nottingham for the week and not have to go back up to Liverpool, so that was a great bonus of course. Now its bank holiday weekend. I’ve got tomorrow off, but I do need to be up in Liverpool on Tuesday. I’ll probably be moving up there for good starting next weekend. It’s been a fantastic last couple of months. I managed to stay down here in Nottingham far longer than I first expected. Nikkie is now on placement so she is working every day at the hospital, so that means we can’t spend the days with each other anyway. That being the case my being away won’t be so bad. I won’t be able to see her every night, but we’ll manage. I seem to be saying this a lot recently, but I will write more regularly in the future. This last week I’ve been travelling around for half the time, and the week before I was at Nikkie’s parents. Sorry to everyone who has emailed me that I haven’t replied to yet. I will get to them all! Written while listening to Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter.