GenesisDreams

Wedding Bells

Friends - General - Personal - Travel Before anyone gets too excited, no I am not getting married! My mother is though, to a fabulous bloke called Rodney, and I am flying back to Australia for the wedding. I fly in on the 25th of March, the Wedding is on the 31st of March, I am staying for Easter, and then flying back to the UK on the 11th of April. The 11th also happens to be my little brother Jeremy’s birthday, and thankfully my flight leaves late at night, so I will have time to celebrate it with him. I will email everyone in due course, as I know that as I so rarely update this blog now, that most of you guys out there will want to know that I am coming back and won’t find out from here. I am looking forward to coming back in March, it will be the first time I’ve been back close to summer for almost four years now. I am really looking forward to coming back. It is a short trip this time. My current visa is valid for the next five years, so I don’t need to faff about with anything to do with that. I have also got things in place at work so that I shouldn’t be bothered too much. I realise I haven’t let anyone know where I am living or really what I am doing at the moment here in the UK. It is a cold Saturday morning here right now, so I am going to take some time to go over it all. First some pictures! I am currently living in a beautiful old house that has been converted into flats. It is called: The Croft! I am currently driving a brand new (well new in September, with 56 plates) Black VW Golf GTI. It allows me to go far to fast for my own good, and I got my first ever speeding ticket in it in the first month of driving it. Here is a picture of me standing outside the Croft, on a wet, bleak Liverpool day, with My Golf! Here are some other random pictures that my friend Viki took when she Ben (ex-housemates) came to stay between Christmas and New Year. This is: My Bed, this is: My Coat Rack, this is My Desk, this is My Dinner Table, this is My Kitchen, and this is not my Guitar. Things have been absolutely manic around here like they have been for the past two years. I am really proud of where I’ve gotten to though. I’m head of department for thirteen people, I have generated turned things around and we are now a profit centre rather than a cost centre, I’ve created new business directly out of our work, and I’m also half way through doing my MSc, just a dissertation to go now! I send all you guys individual emails because I really do want to catch up properly and see how everyone is going. Take care!

Flights Home

Friends Hello all, As most of your know, I am coming back home for 4 weeks! Sorry I haven't updated this sooner to let everyone know, but things are pretty hectic here at the moment. Well that is always the case, but more so than usual. So I fly in on Wednesday and I am saying till September. See you all in a couple of days!

Meetings In London

Friends - Personal - Work It’s mid-morning and I am on the train from Nottingham to Liverpool. I had a big meeting with some of the General Dynamics guys in London yesterday. We were discussing the next phase of the project; what feedback they had from the first phase and what features they would like to see in the second. Everything went well; their feedback was positive and their requirements manageable in the timeframes required. It was a very productive meeting. So Nikkie was up last weekend, and because she has finished placement and is on Project week, she stayed a couple of extra days and came down to London with me yesterday. I of course had to work all day, but I jump at every chance I get to spend more time with her. I’m back at work today of course and it is going to be busy as usual. But as I’ve said before, I’m finding it really interesting, I am enjoying it, and I’m getting paid really well too. So enough of my recap of work. That’s all I seem to talk about recently. On to other things! Thanks to all of my friends who emailed me back with status updates on their lives! I wrote about fifteen different emails that day on the train and sent them out to all of you guys who I want to keep in touch with. It was great to hear back from all of you (well almost all of you, you slackers know who you are who didn’t write back, so get on it!! :), I really liked reading about everything new that’s been going on in your lives since we last caught up. Some of you I hadn’t talked to for at least a year! This blog is a very one-way form of communication. I write my entries but get very little in the way of comments. I know people read it; I’ve got stats that show when the site is viewed and where the viewers are. I recognise pretty much everyone who reads the site, who the readers are from Australia, who they are from the US, who they are from the UK, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got that Finnish reader sussed too :) Some of you check the site almost daily, some from week to week, while others sometimes go months without checking. I know you are all filled in on what’s going on in my life (or the small portion of it I have time to describe here), but I feel really left out when it comes to all of your lives. So I’ve done my best to remedy that. If you won’t add comments or (heaven forbid!) create blogs of your own then I am just going to have to pester you with emails until you respond!! Until then, take care everyone.

Another Long Week

Friends - Fun - Personal - University - Work Well it’s Friday again, and I’m on the train down to Nottingham. I have some time now to myself, to think, to reflect, and to write an entry for my blog! This week was very intensive. I did an all-nighter Sunday night, and another Tuesday night. I racked up more than 80 working hours this last week, so effectively did two weeks work in one. This whole last month I’ve been averaging 60 hours a week. It’s pay day today though, and I’ve got a rather large pay packet coming to me, so I’m happy. ^_^ The drinks are definitely on me tonight!! I’ve been doing some really excellent work recently, and because of it I’ve got another promotion. I’m now the design authority for the Enterprise Project Management system I am producing, which means a lot more authority and responsibility. Hopefully another pay rise too; I’m talking to the boss about that next week. So we are now examining the next phase of functionality. I’m writing documentation and getting everything ready for security auditing. We have to comply with BS779 because of the restricted and secret information that is being held on the system. We are entering an exciting stage of the project and I’m really looking forward to getting onto the next lot of functionality. But enough about work. According to Nikkie I am now officially the best boyfriend in the world. Because I’ve been so busy this last week I haven’t been able to call her as much as I would like. She has been really busy too, doing her neurology placement in a hospital in Boston. She’s been feeling a little sad that we have both been too busy to keep in better contract, so to cheer her up I got a dozen red roses delivered to the ward she was working on in the hospital . She said she got such a shock when they arrived, and has had a massive grin on her face ever since. I’ve had a massive grin of my face all day too knowing about the surprise she would get. I can’t wait to get to Nottingham and see her. In other news I talked to mum and Fragma last night for about an hour each. It’s the first time I talked to either of them on the phone since I got back from Australia! I know! How bad of a son/friend am I!! Mum had a lot of news to tell, and we chatted for ages. She told me that she had received a thing from the University of Queensland saying that I had been admitted to the Dean’s Honour Roll for my Bachelor of Business Management, which I thought was a scream. I hardly use my Engineering degree, let alone my Business one. I guess it’s good to put on my CV, but I still think of it as a bit of a joke considering the amount of work I put into it. Mum said she lost the lapel pin that came with it, but I told her not to worry. I’m never going to wear it. After speaking to mum I called Fragma at work. He works harder than I do the crazy man! Nikkie reckons it is all his fault that I am working this hard. She says he is a bad influence on me :). We chatted about all my friends back home, what they are up to, what new things that have been happening. We also chatted the normal bollocks that we do. It was great to talk to him again. I’ve got to stop being so slack and call my friends back home more. I think I’ve only called Ads and Wulfen once or twice each, and Fragma only a few more times than that. I left some really great friends behind in Aus and I really need to start making more of an effort to keep in touch. With that thought in mind I’m going to finish this blog entry here and spend my remaining battery power writing emails all of those friends of mine who have been slipping away recently. Expect an email soon guys!

Shopping and Reunions

Friends - Fun So Saturday Nikkie took me shopping in Nottingham. I really needed some new winter clothes. Since I hadn’t bought anything new for myself in ages I decided to spurge and spend a hell of a lot of money. I figure that I’m working full time now and I’m earning good money, so I shouldn’t look like a shabby student anymore. It is about time to scrub up and care about what I look like a little more. So Nikkie took think as a sign to go to all the posh shops! I bought jumpers from FCUK and shirts from Ted Baker. I’m generally clueless about labels and which some things are better than others, however after trying on some of the stuff in Ted Baker I understood why it was so expensive. This was really, really good quality stuff. I promptly spent £95 there without even thinking about it. So anyway I bought a whole new posh wardrobe and now fit the image of a well paid professional. I feel a whole lot better about myself too, I didn’t realise that good clothes made this much difference. Saturday night the old Church Avenue gang got back together for the first time since April. Bruce, Ben, Graeme, Nikkie, Viki and I all met up at the Pitcher and Piano and promptly slipped right back into where we left off 4 months ago. Everyone had stories to tell and we had a great time catching up. As I was now a big successful working man it fell to me to buy a bottle of champagne for us to celebrate our reunion with. We all got drunk and happy and I was struck with how much I had missed all of them. I’m heading back down to Notts next Friday, so we’ll all go out together again, and it will be just like old times.

Counting Down!

Friends - Fun - Travel Well I’m on the train down to Nottingham… again! Lately it seems like the only time I get to write entries is when I’m on the train. Train travel provides you with a kind of peaceful solitude that allows one time for reflection and contemplation. I’ve got a lot to reflect upon, and so much more to come that I need to contemplate. Three more sleeps to go before I am on my way home. It’s so exciting. I really can’t wait. I’ve finished work for the week. Got all my tasks done, and now I’m free! I’m going down to Nottingham to meet up with Nikkie, go out on the town, convince her to leave some shoes and handbags behind, and then we are going to pack up her car and drive up to Liverpool tomorrow. Things have gone so fast recently. Everything has come at once, and now I am rushed to finalise everything before I go away. I went to my cousins last night, had a few drinks and a nice dinner and talked about how jammy I am. I was also laden down with presents to bring back with me. Between all of Nikkie’s stuff and my cousin’s presents I barely have any room for anything of my own. I want to have lots of left over space too, because I plan on brining as much stuff as possible back over with me. I am coming home this trip, but I don’t know whether it is my home anymore. There is so little of me left there now, and there will be even less soon. I’ve started accumulating stuff, but it’s not in Brisbane, it’s in my flat in Liverpool. I’ve got furniture, plate sets and towel sets and bed linen. I’ve started painting the place, making it exactly how I (or rather we, as Nikkie has a big say in it) want it. It’s starting to feel like my very own place now; I’ve put my touch onto it. I’m becoming an adult, all grown up and responsible. I own bed linen! I mean come on! I’m earning a living, going on a business trip, organising my finances. It’s scary and yet exciting at the same time. Anyway enough rambling. This will probably be the last entry I post before I am over in Aus! Man I need to start getting organised. I haven’t even thought about packing yet!

I'm Alright

Friends - General I was shocked by the terror attacks that occured today in London. I was safe up in Liverpool away from all the danger. Thanks to everyone who texted/rang/emailed me to make sure I was alright. I really appreciate the thought.

Coming Home

Friends - Personal - Travel - Work I started this blog more than two years ago. Boy I’ve come a long, long way since then. So I’ve been really busy these last couple of weeks. That’s not unusual. A lot has been happening at work. That’s not unusual either. There are some big changes in the works though, which has led to something unusual. So, to cut to the chase, and to let those of you know whom I haven’t contacted already, I’m flying back to Australia on July the 12th. I’m coming home. Though I don’t really know whether it is my home anymore. I’m not coming back to stay, that’s for sure. I’ve got a three week trip booked, and it’s predominately a business trip, the emphasis behind it coming from work rather than my desire to come back for a visit. I had originally not planned on coming back for a visit until Christmas time, but things have been steamrolling ahead at work, and that’s necessitated my early return. To explain in more detail; I’ve been promoted! I’ve been given a great opportunity, a great new job focus, and when my boss offered it to me I jumped at it. I can’t quite do what is being asked of me yet, so I’ve got to do some training first. Guess what, the training I need to do can be done in Brisbane! And it’s a damn sight cheaper than doing it in London as well! So I’m flying home on the company dime, to do two weeks of intensive training on the company dime, all while earning the company dime as if I were working as usual, and at the end of it I fly back to the UK to a new, better, job earning even more of the company dime than before! As Nikkie says, I am a jammy bastard ^_^ Speaking of Nikkie, she is coming with me! She has one more week of placement and then she starts summer holidays. I’ve explained to her that I’ll be working most of the time when I’m back home, that for me this isn’t a holiday as such, it’s part of my job, but she wouldn’t be talked out of coming. Not that I wanted to talk her out of coming. I can’t wait to introduce her to my mum, and all my friends, and show her where I grew up. I’m so totally in love with this girl that I want her to know everything about me, to meet everyone that is important to me, to share in these experiences with me. She is so excited !! ^_^ Things are going really well for me here. I’m in a fantastic job, I have a great flat, I’m going out with the most beautiful girl. I’m fit and well and happy and loving it all. I don’t think my friend will recognise me when I get home. Partly because Nikkie has had me out running with her, and physically I am much trimmer and more toned than before, but also I think my personality is a great deal different to how it was two years ago. It’s hard to describe, but I think it has to do mostly with my outlook on life, or rather more importantly, my outlook on myself. Don’t worry, I wont get all philosophical here, I just think that some of my friend will be shocked at the change in me. I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am to be coming home. This time next week will be my last sleep in the UK before I leave. There is so much to do before then, so much to organise, to work out, to plan for. Right now I don’t care about any of that, I’m just too excited! !!!!!! Written while listening to Alex Lloyd - Coming Home

Early Morning

Friends - Fun - Work So I’ve been slack again at writing entries. Nikkie wrote a thesis guest entry last time. She is such a sweetie. I’m writing this on the train back up from Nottingham to Liverpool, early Monday morning. It’s been a full on last two weeks. Nikkie finished her exams last week, went to Amsterdam with Jade, and then stayed with me last weekend and all last week. At lot has happened, but I’ll just go over it briefly, because I’ve been awake since 5am, and I want to catch a quick nap on the train before I have to go to work. Last Saturday Nikkie, Graeme and I went to help out a Netball tournament that Lisa from work organised to support Breast Cancer research. We had to time matches, ring bells and announce things over the PA system. No very exciting, but it gave us all a lot of time to chat and catch up. Saturday night Ben came down and we all went into town. I had only been out in Liverpool once before with Ads, and that was a random Tuesday night, and Nikkie had never been, so we both looked forward to a big party night. This was Ben and Graeme’s territory, so we let them lead us from bar to bar, club to club, and we got progressively drunker as the night wore on. It was a fantastic night out, the music was great, the atmosphere was pumping, we all had a great time. We ended up getting the night bus back to my place, well it didn’t quite stop at my door, which meant that we needed to walk home a little way. Somewhere along the way we “lost” Ben. We were going to go looking for him, but instead just fell asleep. All of a sudden it was 10am the next morning and he still wasn’t there. Nikkie, crazy girl, put her on running gear and set out to look for him, fearing that he was in a gutter somewhere. She only got halfway down the street before discovering him, curled up asleep in the back of his car. We then went to back to bed and slept into 3pm. The rest of the week went really fast. Work was busy, really busy, and I often has to stay late. Nikkie was absolutely fantastic and cleaned my flat and sorted out all of my stuff, and make my place civilised. It wasn’t that I was particularly disorganised, I just hadn’t had the time to sort everything out. I’m really lucky to have found her, she is wonderful. Thursday night I played a 4 hour club game a cricket. Paul my boss was in Bulgaria, so he asked me to fill in his place. I haven’t played cricket since highschool, and my eye wasn’t in at all, but I played pretty well and had a great time. I didn’t have proper whites though, and so played in shorts. My knees were shredded by the end because I was making diving saves, and my legs killed me the next day from all the running around I did. Nikkie over the course of the week, while I was at work, did lots of physio work, lots of pottering, lots of walking on the beach, and spent lots of time watching the fourth season of 24! Over the course of the week she watched the first 20 episodes, catching up with me, and then together we watch the final four. WOW! What a fantastic series, it was absolutely awesome! Saturday we drove back down to Nottingham. Nikkie’s parents came up on Sunday, we all went out for lunch, and now, come Monday morning, I’m on the train, heading back to Liverpool, ready to start another week. I’m going to sleep now.

These little piggies went to Amsterdam

Friends - Fun - Guest Entry - Personal - Travel - University This is Nikkie. Michael asked me to do a guest entry so here goes... The physiotherapy course is so hectic that this is the first time in a year that we have been privileged enough to have been given a week off while all the other students are busy celebrating the arrival of an 18 week summer holiday. I grabbed the opportunity to whisk Jade, my best friend and housemate, off to Amsterdam for a wild night out to celebrate her 21st birthday. Before our adventure could commence, we had to endure painstaking revision and an exam which took place on the Wednesday morning (1st June) at 8.45am. Jade and I were both very nervous for the practical exam as you never have enough time to think and appear a fool if you don’t have the answers at the drop of a hat. The exam consists of a case scenario, 15 minutes thinking time and then joining the examiners to discuss all the relevant anatomy and clinical reasoning to arrive at an appropriate diagnosis. Next, you discuss a management plan and have to demonstrate 2 treatment techniques on a model. Finally, after what seems like forever, you document everything done with the patient, including treatment dosage, gained consent, safety tests, advice given and when you would next like to see them. Jade and I were given the same scenario of a patient with tension headaches so we came out of the exam intrigued as to what treatment we had each given. Luckily, we both appeared to administer the same treatment for similar reasons, so with that out of the way we left to get ready for our trip! I drove, for the first time, up to Liverpool. We arrived, after a relatively stress free journey to the city but as we approached Michael’s flat, things became slightly more traumatic. At this point it is fairly relevant to mention that Michael has lived in Liverpool for 5 weeks but still appears to walk around with his eyes closed, hence the reason he (and Graeme) will be blamed for getting us lost! We ended up travelling around a roundabout 5 times until they could meet us there and take us the right way! So, we eventually arrived at the flat, piled our belongings up the 3 flights of stairs and headed out for some lunch in a typical English café. The boys left shortly to return to work and us girls took the opportunity for some light shopping before our lift to the airport. Jade and I are both fanatical about fashion and the idea of retro and vintage clothing delights us! As a result, spotting 4 charity shops to rummage through determined the activities of the following few hours. At around 5pm, the boys had finished work for the day and we hopped in the car, laden with plastic bags full of vintage 1940’s purses, tops, scarves and the odd few bits including a wooden elephant names Widnes! So much for the light shopping trip! Graeme and Michael dropped Jade and I off at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport and I managed to shop as soon as we got there, buying a fantastic golden yellow leather handbag. We boarded the plane at 7pm and by 11pm were sat in a bar in Amsterdam. An exam at 8.45am in a British university, and barring in Amsterdam by 11pm - I love Europe! Staying in a cheap hostel in the red light district ensured we were surrounded by lots of young people. We quickly re-applied some lip-gloss and changed our shoes to heels and headed out. Passing the local chippy, we were unable to resist the classic Dutch chips and mayo. I got back into the swing of the language and was soon chatting to the chip-shop man only having slight difficulty understanding the Amsterdam dialect, which is very different to that I am used to. Once our appetites had been satisfied, we followed the crowds past some very sexy and virtually naked women in doorways to a bar for a beer. Soon after our arrival we began chatting to the barman who, much to our disgust, told us we were not in a ‘green’ café, although smoking in there was permitted. We rushed off to find somewhere selling pre-rolled joints, as neither of us were in any fit state to start rolling ourselves. On the recommendation of the guy behind the counter, whom I now realise we should never have trusted, we bought 4 joints for the equivalent of about £10. Back in the previous bar we lit up and began to chat to a bunch of Aussie men. It amazed me how many Australians there were in Amsterdam, most travelling Europe after uni. Mindless chit chat revealed that these particular guys were all living in London as teachers although one had flown in from Sydney that afternoon. They were a laugh and bought us a couple of drinks so we decided to stick with them for a while. By about 1am, we had broken off and un-surprisingly only two guys remained. We visited a few more bars, smoked and drunk a bit more while playing cards in a chilled bar. The lads knew where our hostel was, as they were in the same one, so we began our walk home. We were halfway there when Jade was cornered by one of the lads and had to apologise that he must have got the wrong idea from her. Realising that he was not going to get anywhere with her that night, he swiftly left. The other guy, however, was more persistent and we had to team up to get rid of him, which we eventually did by hiding in our dorm! Although I had shared a dorm with mates on camping trips ( I was in the scouts) and on school trips, nothing quite prepared me for this. It was a dorm of 20 beds and great fun. We sat up a while chatting crap due to our stoned and drunken state when we over heard a couple arguing over a guy having been in a peep show instead of meeting up with his girl! I’m sure this would have still amused me sober but we were both having serious difficulty in resisting laughter and continued to listen to the bickering trying to work out whether the guy’s story was genuine or he had in-fact been in a sex show as his lady was stating! By about 3am we got ready for bed and fell into light, interrupted sleep. We awoke at 8am with the sun streaming into the room and the dorm already half empty. After showering and attempting to make ourselves look remotely human we wandered downstairs for a full English breakfast, and a mug of incredibly strong tea. Our persistent friend from the previous night pulled up a chair questioning us about where and when we were leaving Amsterdam. Making quick excuses and ensuring we were sufficiently dosed up with caffeine we walked in the direction of the main shopping street – Kalver straat. I had been to Amsterdam previously with relatives living nearby so was slightly more orientated than the average tourist and we found Kalver straat fairly quickly. We shopped, had some lunch in the Vroom and Dressmann restaurant, a definite must for a cheap detoxifying meal, and shopped some more. After a few more trips to the cash-point and laden with bags, we returned to the red light district for some major vintage shopping. I got a pair of ankle height grey slouch boots which I had been on the hunt for ages. All in all, we spent over £200 of our student overdrafts on clothes and accessories, all very worthwhile! After all, you spend what money you actually have, and then the bank decides to give you more! No, I don’t always have such a lax attitude to money but do find it very hard to resist a bargain! By 5pm we were exhausted and grabbed our bags from the station lockers and returned to Schipol airport for a ‘maccy D’s’ (Mcdonalds) and to catch our flight home. We landed back in Liverpool at 10pm and were greeted by the boys who drove us back to Michael’s flat. Shattered from our adventure we went to bed and slept soundly. The following morning, Michael strolled into work at 10am and Jade left to rush back to Manchester to grab fresh clothes for a night out with some old friends in Newcastle! I, on the other hand, pottered around the flat with my eyes half closed all day trying to recover from abusing my body so much. The next few days have consisted of more pottering and trying to get Michael’s hole of a flat slightly more liveable! I have cleaned, washed, tidied and sorted but this is the first and last time I will do, so he will have to become domesticated from now on! We did a very ‘grown-up’ shop of cleaning products yesterday evening which Michael clearly needed some guidance on - he was shocked to discover that bathroom and kitchen cleaner were different! My work here is definitely challenging! On Saturday night we visited Liverpool’s night life which I definitely felt was something else! I felt like I was in Ibiza, obviously without the gorgeous weather, it was very surreal. We sat in a square outside surrounded by bars and a very concentrated amount of gorgeous people. The women were all slim, verging on the border of too slim, had all been bronzed, either by a bottle or some hard work on a sun bed, and were made up with very expensive looking clothing. Graeme, Ben and Michael, un-surprisingly, were in awe of them all, [Editor’s Note: I was more in awe of my fantastic girlfriend of course!- Wigs], as was I, but my eye was placed more on enjoying the surrounding fashion statements. I must state though, the women were some of the best I have ever seen, obviously not including celebs, models etc, only with the downside of the Liverpudlian accent! The men were incredibly well groomed and also in expensive clothing. The music was brilliant, Michael said that it was much like the dance music ‘back home’. Being out with the lads I had to keep up with the pace of drinking which, with a reputation of a lightweight I did quite well, going drink for drink with them. Overall, Liverpool was a great night out, expensive but great. Our trek home left much to be desired. We caught the night bus home after waiting for a taxi for over an hr. On the walk home from the bus stop we got separated losing Ben, our other scouser housemate who had come home for the summer, and fell asleep with him not having returned to the flat. We woke with a startle the next morning realising Ben was still not home. I dressed hurriedly, on a bad hangover, to jog around and try and find him. Michael eventually got him on his mobile at the same time as I came across him asleep in the back of his car! Safe, but still very very pissed he came up to the flat to sleep off the alcohol. I went for a 20minute run along the beach and came back when Michael and I decided to return to bed till 3pm. Another crazy but fantastic night out. To think that a year ago, I was still in Newark Hall, had only known Michael 6 months, was a fresher and living a very dependant life shows how much things can change. Life is fantastic but it has been hard to get to this point; I considered dropping the physiotherapy course during the harder times, Michael moved 3 hrs away from Nottingham just when we finally got together, I moved house and Graeme’s changed university course. The summer is only a month away, I have one more outpatients placement to get through and then I will be back in Liverpool living and working here for 6 weeks. Third year will be here sooner than later and then I’ll be a qualified physiotherapist and will have to become even slightly responsible! On second thoughts, I’ll delay that as long as I can, go travelling, live a little before pinning myself to a 9-5 job. The end of university is so close, yet so far. I’m only two thirds through it and things have changed so much since arriving in September as a fresher. Change is good. Hard but good.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Robes and Room Service

Friends - Fun - Travel I've got to be in Liverpool on Monday. My working permit has come through and I've got a few things I need to sort out up there. I'm staying the whole week, and wont be back down to Nottingham until this weekend. It's going to be horrible, I know it. I've been with Nikkie everyday for the past month, and I want to continue seeing her everyday. This girl has got to me bad and I don't know how I'm going to manage to survive a whole week apart. Anyway rewind, I haven't told of our Brussels adventures yet. So we went and stayed with my cousin in Milton Keynes for a couple of days, then drove down to Nikkie's parents place and stayed there on Wednesday night, before getting up early Thursday morning, getting the train into London Waterloo, and jumping on the Eurostar! I’d been on it once before, but it was Nikkie’s first time, and she was very excited. The trip went smoothly and we arrived in Brussels at two in the afternoon. We got the metro from the train station to Rogier Place, and on reaching ground level, we were confront by our hotel. The Brussels 5 Star Sheraton Towers Hotel. Wow, I was intimidated just looking at it. We got there, checked in, and went up to our room, #24 on the 15th floor. Again, wow. This place was very, very swanky and cool. Here is a picture of me taken in the mirror in our room and here is one of the view out our window, with a very lovely Nikkie eloquently brushing her teeth in there as well. Anyway after jumping up and down a little on our king size double bed we ventured up to the top floor to check out the pool. I’m going to keep saying wow here, because it really was spectacular. We went for a swim, and a sauna, and another swim, and by then were hungry so went out strolling the streets of Brussels, found a nice restraint and had a fantastic dinner. Afterwards we went to the O-Bar, which was in the hotel, and hideously expensive, but very hip, and it had table service, and was open to late, and we only had to get the lift back to our room, so it was perfect for us. We talked and drank the night away before retiring for the night. We slept in the next day, but made sure to get up just in time for our buffet breakfast Mmm the Belgians know how to do breakfast in style, there is nothing like offering all you can eat waffles at 10am. We then ventured forth to check out Brussels during the day. And oh what a day it was; beautiful, sunny weather, 18 degrees, clear skies, little wind. Perfect. I don’t think you could have asked for a better day. So we went walking, seeing what sights Brussels has to offer. The main square, the cathedral, the royal palace, the central park, the little man pissing. Great stuff all round. By three in the afternoon we had exhausted the sights of Brussels so decided to return to the hotel. Up to the pool again for some more swimming, and this time, because the weather was so nice, we went out on the terrace and sunbathed until 6.30! In April! That’s how fabulous the weather was. So after swimming and lazing about for a while we decided we were far too comfortable to leave the hotel for dinner, so we ordered dinner from the bar at the pool, which they promptly delivered and placed on little tables besides our deck chairs next to the pool. Room service poolside, positively indulgent. Not having the right money to pay for it we just charged it to the room, the beginning of a slippery slope. Dinner was great though, and before we knew it the pool was closing and it was 10pm. We had spent the entire afternoon and evening in our swimsuits. After that we went back to our rooms, got changed and headed down to the O-Bar for some more drinks. Again we talked into the night, and cocktails, beer and nuts (though resisting temptation to charge all of our drinks to the room). Later that night, after having a nice hot bath we decided to order room service; chocolaty desserts to finish off the evening, The guy who delivered our food gave me a slightly bemused look when I answered the door in my robe and slippers, though as I was signing the credit slip (to again charge it to the room) I figured that he must get lots of the calls at 3am in the morning. The next day we slept in again, longer this time as breakfast on Saturday continued through till late and we didn’t have to check out till 12. Later that afternoon we caught the Eurostar back to London. Ok so if you are finding it hard to imagine this place, think along the lines of the Park Hyatt Tokyo from Lost In Translation. There was a gym, a pool, you could walk around in your robe and slippers, the bar didn’t have a live band, but it was very cool all the same. We are both poor students, hell I’m not even a student anymore, officially I’m still unemployed! For those three days though we lived the highlife and loved every minute of it. Now that I’m back now I’m dreading checking my credit card bill though and seeing everything I charged to the room ^_^ While we were away the Pope died. We had originally planned on going to Rome to get my out of the country. I’m really glad we chose Brussels now. Now the whole point of this trip wasn’t just to have an indulgent romantic getaway, it was to get my passport stamped with a visitors visa, which I managed to do, after a thorough interrogation by the immigration man about my plans and how I was to support myself. I had to show him my bank card and explain how I would get hold of money and everything. It was pretty scary actually, taking about 10 minutes talking to him before he actually stamped my passport. I have the stamp now, so that means I can stay legally in the country for another 6 months (though now my working permit has been approved and I submit for a working visa which will be valid for four years!). So Saturday night we stayed at Nikkie’s parents place again, before driving back up to Nottingham the next day. Nikkie’s little sister was on holidays, so we took her and her friend up to Notts to show them around and take them out. I never imagined it would be so easy to get a 15 year old into a bar!! Anyway so a whole heap of other stuff has been going on, but I’ve not got to get ready to head up to Liverpool. Don’t expect another entry from me till next weekend! Also Happy Birthday to my brother Jeremy, who turns 21 tomorrow!

Beautiful Brussels

Friends - Fun - Personal - Travel My student visa expires tomorrow. If I stay in the country past tomorrow I'll be living here illegally. I had two options, either apply to the consulate for a further leave to remain on a visitors visa, which would cost me £150, or leave the country and come back in during April and get a six months visitors visa for free on re-entry. I opted for the second option. Later tonight Nikkie and I are heading down to her parents place in North London, and then tomorrow we are heading off on the Eurostar from London, down through the channel tunnel, and then across to Brussels. We are staying two nights at the Five Star Sheraton Brussels Hotel before getting the Eurostar back to London on Saturday. I'll be out of the country, have a fantastic time, and come back in getting my visa for the same amount it would have cost me to apply directly to the consulate. I found the deal on lastminute.com, it's fantastically priced for what we get, including Eurostar tickets and two nights 5* accommodation at one of the best hotels in Brussels with breakfast included. The hotel looks amazing, with large rooms, comfy looking beds (^_^) and a heated indoor pool up on the 30th floor with a view over the Brussels skyline. It's right in the heart of the city too, within walking distance of all the major attractions. Brussels is a beautiful city. I've only been there once before, and then only for a couple of hours as I was making my way down from Bruges to Paris, but what I saw made me want to go back and spend more time there. There will be lots of premium Belgium beers to drink, as well as copious amounts of quality Belgium chocolate to consume. I'm really looking forward to the trip, I'm sure we are going to have an amazing time; positively indulgent! Some people may think it's a little strange for Nikkie and I to go on a romantic holiday, particularly to a different country and staying in an expensive hotel, when we haven't even officially been going out for three weeks. It's a big step, a serious thing to do, and for many people it may seem like we are going along incredibly quickly. But we know better. In our minds we've been together for three months rather than three weeks, and we both liked each other long before that. We've been almost inseparable these last three months and have become closer than I would have thought possible. We've lived with each other, we know everything about each other, and we were best friends before we became involved. There isn't a single day since we've been officially going out that I haven't seen her, spent some time with her. It's been very intense, very passionate, and so I don't think you can judge us based upon the time we've been "officially" going out. We're going to enjoy this time away, have a fantastic break, have lots of fun, and then keep going on as strongly as we have so far. Anyway I've got to start packing and getting ready! My next entry wont be for a couple of days, but when I get back I'll let everyone know how it was. Written while listening to Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want (Cheesy, I know! ^_^)

Abandoned, Alone, Happy!

Friends - General So one by one my friends are abandoning me. Graeme left to go back up to Liverpool a couple of weeks ago. He is changing courses and so is repeating his second year. That being the case he didn't see much point in showing up to the rest of the lectured he had this term. Nikkie moved out more than a week ago now, and the last of her stuff is finally gone. The house seems really cold and empty without her. Bruce got the train up to Edinburgh on Friday. It’s Easter holidays and he is going home, first to Scotland, and then over to Dubai. He wont be back till the 17th of April, when he will be down "taking part" (or watching as I prefer to call it) in the London Marathon. Viki left on Saturday. She was getting the train all the way over to Cardiff, where she was going to spend the night (and celebrate Wales' Six Nations Grand Slam Victory!!) before heading home for a couple of weeks. Ben left on Saturday as well, up to Liverpool to party and sit off at home for a whole month before having to come back here for the start of next term. Ads leaves tomorrow. He is flying up to Edinburgh to meet up with Bruce for a bit and then travel around Scotland. He's been here for three and a half weeks now, and it has been great seeing him again and hanging out. I must admit I've been a bit of a poor host. I've been spending almost every free moment with Nikkie lately, and so Ads has had lots of days and nights sitting off with the rest of my housemates watching DVDs or reading books. Sorry about that mate. So that leaves me. Alone. Abandoned. In this big old house, all by myself. The good new is that Nikkie has another week of lectures before her Easter holidays start, and isn't planning on going home until April anyway (and she has invited me down then as well!) so that means that I probably wont be so alone in this big old house. In fact I doubt I'll be by myself very much at all for the next couple of weeks. We are going to make the most of this time together, while I'm down here, before I have to move away. We are going to have some quality time coming up, totally for each other, without having to worry about other friends, or work, or study, or anything else at all. I can't wait. Written while listening to Alex Lloyd - Amazing.

Alton Towers Adventure!

Friends - Fun - Guest Entry Yesterday Nikkie, Ads and I drove down to the theme park Alton Towers. We were meeting up with Jackie, Jo and Tom who were coming down from Liverpool. It's Jackie's birthday today, and so the Alton Towers trip was a sort of pre-birthday fun-filled excursion. --- ads override --- So Wigs is getting his Neighbours fix at the moment (despite declarations he is not hooked enough to watch the same episode twice a day, this is today's second viewing,) so the burden has fallen upon my heavy shoulders to summarise yesterdays adventures. And maybe add my 2 cents about eurobackpacking, life, the universe and blogs. Actually screw that, I hate blogs :D After 2 hours sleep (long story) I was awoken at half eight in the morning by Wigs (booming voice) for Operation Alton (dinner-out is a go). A bowl of cornflakes (Sainsbury special), a 50 minute burl down the motorway (M-1 through M-69, it seems), 20 minutes through the archetypically British, picturesque Alton countryside (complete with winding roads and blind corners), and a 5 minute walk from the Alton Towers carpark to the theme park proper (monorail inoperative) and here we were (where?). It'd be nice to say that going to Alton Towers embodied some sort of symbolic return to the UK for me, as going there had been one of the last things I had done before emigrating to Aus. Alas I couldn't actually remember anything about it, except there was lots of fun to be had. And fun there was. Oblivion. Nemesis. Submission. Rides appropriatelly named. A disconcerting indicator of the degree of intensity of a ride is given by the tightness of the harness on your crotch. And these rides were real crotchbusters. Which isn't a necessarily bad thing. Everybody has pondered what exactly would happen if your harness failed mid-ride. Most likely they'd be scraping you off the pavement. This is why I was expecting some sort of sympathy, concern and/or worry when the ride diagnostics said there was something wrong with my harness on Air, and the supervisor had to come and check it out. But no, instead Tom and Jo just point at me and burst out laughing. Thanks guys. More of the same after the second ride, when my ankle clips (yes, Air has harnesses to secure your legs) didn't unlock. Ride after ride, one by one we bugged out. Jackie on Enterprise, Jo - Ripsaw go #1; shortly followed by me on go #2, fighting rising bile as my stomach was palpitated by my intestines. Inertia is funny that way. Nikkie on the Tea Cup ride. The Tea Cup ride. After braving the Tower's top 5 adrenalin busters, the oldschool 'all round fun' Tea Cup ride may seem a peculiar choice for a black flag. But that is an opinion reserved for those who have not experienced the singular pleasure of 5 people, damp to dripping wet (see below), crammed into a giant teacup screaming, singing and spinning while tracing gracefull, high velocity spirographs in an area the size of a front yard. Ripsaw made me mildly nauseous. Mr Tea Cup ride OBLITERATED me; this thing is the destroyer of worlds. I wasn't alone. It is the most underrated ride there. I cannot overemphasize how bad. Fighter pilots do not experience g-forces quite like these. It was followed by unanimous agreement to grab a coffee and have a 10 minute sit down. Make that 30 minutes. Somewhere along the line Wigs and I stopped for a game of DDR, much to the digust of everyone else. And of course no theme park excursion is complete without the water rides - or namely, the conspiracies to get the unsuspecting soaked on said rides. And the conspiracies were abound. After the Wigs-Tom-Jackie (these three being the most mischievous) entente to drench the rest of us only resulted in their self-soaking (viz. Tom - 'My bottom is swimming!') on the rapids, we proceeded to the flumes. Better known elsewhere as the log ride, to those not in the know, it involves a bathtub sized conveyance (indeed, our particular vehicle at this venue was called a bathtub, nuff said) taking a narrowly winding water path with some sudden drops and accompanying splashes. These get progressively larger. The main 'fun' (and I use this term loosely) comes from seeing who gets drenched at each drop. It's sadistic, random, quite unfair and oh how we loved it. Here we were all mightily impressed by Wigs, who chivalrously offered Nickie a seat where he assured her she wouldn't get drenched. How sweet. Then he sat behind and used her as a water shield. Careful, oh intrepid readers: this man is devious. However, Tom and Jackie were the real show stealers. Jo and I, having escaped lightly on the rapids, were afraid the law of averages might catch up. But providence smiled. On us at least. Tom and Jackie had some dirty plan to avoid the water by hiding in the enclave at the front of the bathtub, yet making it fore-heavy to increase the splash for others (ie me, Jo). Make no mistake about it, log ride dynamics is apparently an intricate subject. In this case however, all it did was submerge the front of the tub on the drop and effectively dump buckets of water on them. There was one particularly memorable drop, done in the pitch black of an artificial cave - I braced for the drop, felt the impact, heard the splash. I was thinking 'that wasn't so bad' when Jackie let loose a gawdamighty loud splutter-cum-shriek. Music to my ears. When we got off that ride, Tom looked like he'd been under a shower for 20 seconds; Jackie like she'd jumped in a pool. She took it well, or better than I would've. Once again no sympathy. Not from this bunch. Come late afternoon, the crowds disperse; Tom and Wigs (the rest of us drained) to hop on Nemesis something like a billion times in a row, while I stay to talk fashion with the girls. I can say with confidence Gucci handbags are still in, by the by. So we finally make our leave from Alton Towers. Now when Wigs says 'we' drove, he more means Nikkie drove, he talked, and I slept. We did stop by a pub for some typically excellent British pub food. By now everyone's stomach is settled enough to eat - fish and chips, Yorkshire pudding, shepherds pie. There are some things about Britain I'd forgotten I'd missed.

Crash Into Me

Friends - Fun - Personal Well it's been a long weekend. I only just got home. Saturday I got the train down to London to meet up with Anna and Sarah, the two fun and crazy girls I travelled around most of Italy with last summer. Sarah is heading off in two weeks to the Middle East for six months to do some work for her firm. I hadn't seen her since Christmas so I wanted to take the opportunity to catch up with both her and Anna before she left. So I got the train down, had a lovely lunch with Sarah, and then went back to her apartment to find Anna just crawling out of bed after a heavy previous night. We sat around and had some coffee while I enjoyed their fantastic view out over the river Thames. It was good to see them both again, and we had a lot of catching up to do, but soon the afternoon ran out and I had to come back up to Nottingham. Anna and Sarah both wanted me to stay the night, come out clubbing with them to the Kross in Kings Cross, which was open to 6am that night, but I had to beg off. That night was Nikkie's physiotherapy ball and I had to get back! So after a long day in London I jumped on a train heading back home, and thankfully made it back in time. I think Nikkie would have been quite displeased if I had made her late for the ball ^_^ On Sunday Nikkie's parents were coming up to bring her some furniture and stuff for her new house. I had met Nikkie's parents a couple of times before; once while in Newark hall, and once when they came to our house. They are both really nice, but meeting them this time was a little different. I was no longer just the friend/housemate, I was now the boyfriend, the older boyfriend. I was a little worried to start with, but the day actually went really well. I helped Nikkie's dad put together Nikkie's chest of draws and desk, and then we all went to lunch together. Nikkie's mum quizzed us a little during lunch, because she really had no idea what had been going on (!!! I hope she never finds my blog ^_^) but it seemed cool in the end. Nikkie's sister had also come up, and it was nice to finally meet her as well. Nikkie talked to her mum on the phone later than night and said I made a good impression, so that made me feel good. My mum also rang that night, and I told her all about Nikkie and what had been going on. Mum was typical mum, asking all these awkward questions, and telling me to look after her. Of course I will mum! Come to think of it, Nikkie's mum said the same thing to me just before they all left. So come Monday morning, after spending a grand total of about four hours at my house all weekend, I got Nikkie to drop me into town on her way to Uni, and I came home. I'm tired, it was a busy weekend, but a really fun and enjoyable one. I hope all my weekends to come are going to be this good. Written while listening to Crash Into Me by Dave Mathews Band. P.S. Calvin - I'm an emo rocker too according to that quiz. Fragma - I appreciate all the comments, and "D" is the right option ^_^

This Is The Story Of A Girl

Friends - Fun - Personal - Work So this is the story of a girl. Or wait; maybe it’s another story entirely. They are all intermingled really. Or perhaps they are all independent, but just occurring concurrently. I’m too tired right now to actually figure it all out. I just thought it was about time that I told you all about it. Apart from my two random entries a couple of weeks ago, I’ve written nothing since my birthday, more than a month ago now. A lot has happened since then. I don’t even know where to start. Ah yes! There was mention of a girl. I guess that’s as good a place as any to begin. Nikkie and I have finally quit our (in hindsight rather stupid) efforts to resist each other and are now, to quote my good friend Calvin, ”brilliantly, disgustingly lovey-dovey”. I really like her, she really likes me. We have wasted so much time and have finally decided to waste no more. So no more of this random, drunken, fooling around bullshit; we are serious, committed and both hopelessly besotted. And I’m really happy, happier than I’ve been in a very long time. Nikkie makes me happy, she is caring, smart and funny; and of course it also helps that she is a stunning blonde half-Dutch goddess who is almost as tall as me! ^_^ Ah boy I can’t stop grinning lately. Nikkie is moving out of our share house this weekend into a smaller two bedroom house with one of her physiotherapy friends, Jade. This move had absolutely nothing to do with her and my relationship; she starts her final year after this summer, has her dissertation to finish and lots of lots of placements to go on, so she really needed to get out of the non-stop party place that is our house. At the time when she decided she was going to move out she and I weren’t even together properly and so it was a completely independent decision. It’s just a bonus now I think because it means we can have some semblance of a proper relationship separate from that whole living together thing. There are perks though that I’ll miss of course ^_^ It takes about 10 minutes to get from her new place to our place (officially named the PartyHouse). So commuting that distance won’t be a problem at all. It takes about two hours to drive to Liverpool from here, so commuting that will be a bit of a problem, which brings me to my next story. I’ve gone and got myself a nice shiny new job; or rather it has come and got me. I’ve been offered a job in Liverpool, with a great salary, company flat thrown in, and lots of interesting work. It’s a fantastic opportunity, all my working visa worries are being worked out, and everything made easy for me to move up there. It’s just not something I actively looked for (I was headhunted in effect, but it’s a long story as to how that came about). Liverpool has its benefits; my cousin John lives up there (lucky coincidence), I am familiar with the city, and I already know people who live there. It has also got a terrific nightlife (as long as you stay away from the chilli shots!). The only problem is that it’s two hours from Nottingham, which means two hours away from all my friends here, as well as the person who is constantly on my mind and making me so happy. So yeah that sucks pretty hard. I can’t start work properly until my working visa goes through though, and even though I’m doing the occasional day’s consultancy work on my student visa, that means I won’t be moving up to Liverpool until at least mid-April. So we are going to see what happens. I’m definitely taking this job, it would be foolish not to. I’m going to be moving to Liverpool at some point in the future. Two hours isn’t that much travelling time though, and I’ll have lots of weekends free, and Nikkie has her Uni holidays. At the moment we are still in the “disgustingly lovey-dovey” stage, but we’ve talked about it and are going to do the long distance thing if needed. That being said I’m going to London tomorrow for lunch and coming back tomorrow afternoon, and it is two hours each way there, so it’s doable, we’ll survive. In other news Ads is still here, in the UK, staying with me still actually. He is having a great time just bumming around and catching up on all the movies, TV shows and anime he has missed over the past three months. He will move on at some point, but right now it’s great to have him here, and if he has already stayed for two weeks, why not stay for another two I say! ^_^ I know I haven’t filled in a lot of the blanks here, and have more just updated the current status of my life rather than detailing how and why it came about that way. All those unwritten blog entries over the past month were suppose to cover that stuff. I didn’t write them though, and there is just too much to say right now, so be content with what you get. To all of my friends whose emails I have neglected to reply to recently please forgive me. I’ll get around to responding soon, and I’ll fill you guys in more on what’s going on. I’ll also endeavour to start writing blog entries more regularly again. It’s amazing how you can get so caught up in your life sometimes. It’s a funny thing life ^_^ Now I’m off to cuddle with my girl and be blissfully happy.

Unexplained Absence

Friends - Fun This is my first entry for almost three weeks. A lot has been happening recently and I just haven’t had the time or energy to write anything here. It’s strange because normally I find the time no matter what, but lately I’ve just skipped over writing something. I don’t think I’ll go back and fill in the blanks. There is just too much to tell. I’ve left it too long now, plus I have some really big, exciting news, so I thought it about time to write another entry. Ads has arrived! He showed up on my door at 8pm on Thursday night, just as we were getting ready to go out. If he had come half an hour later he would have been stuck sitting on our front porch till we got back after 12. It was a complete shock! I wasn’t expecting him, and well he wasn’t expecting to have to be there either. He had been told, only that day, that he was in Italy illegally and had to get out. So off to the airport he went, grabbed a ticket, and showed up at my door. So that’s really mad. We went out and got mightily pissed Thursday night and caught up on everything that’s been going on. It was great fun, just like good old times. Ads hasn’t really got a definite plan of what he is going to do next, but he’ll be crashing here for the meantime and we are going to have a lot of fun.

Trapped!

Friends - Quotes Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain I am currently imprisoned within my room. My housemates have exiled me here from downstairs, and I'm not allowed out until they have finished with their "preparations". I went out shopping today, and they thought I was going to be gone longer than I actually was. I don't know what they are doing exactly, but whatever it is, I am looking forward to it. So now, being trapped up here in my room, I've got an excuse to write about my weekend. Last Friday Nikkie gave me a lift down to my cousin's house in Milton Keynes. Nikkie was going home for the weekend, and her place is only about 40 minutes from my cousin's so it wasn't that much out of her way at all. My cousin Simone is exactly ten years older than me, and so we were going to have a combined birthday celebration over the weekend before our actual birthdays. We drank stupid amounts, ate a lot of cake, and had heaps of fun. Then on Monday I came home. Sorry for being so abrupt, but I've been granted my freedom! ^_^

New Hair

Friends - Personal After the comments made in this entry, I thought I would post some pictures of my new hair cut. They aren't very good pictures, having been taken in the gloom of Tantra last night by a less than sober photographer, but I don't think I look too bad. So here they are! Picture One has Graeme on the left not looking at the camera. Picture Two has Bruce on the left playing the fool. That's Nikkie on the right in both of them... My housemates found out, so it doesn't really matter if I divulge it here now, but after the events I talked about in my Consequences entry, Nikkie and I didn't manage to keep to our decision of not letting it happen again. In fact, when I commented in this entry that it was "A pretty uneventful weekend all round. Not too much in the way of distractions.", I kinda underplayed the fact that the reason I got not sleep at all on the Friday night before my Japanese exam was because Nikkie had just come back from being away on placement all week and so I was otherwise occupied :P Just to clarify now though, we are just friends. We are really close, and get on fantastically well, but nothing more is going to happen between us. We've talked about this over many a cup of coffee, and our decision has held out over the last two drunken weekends, so I am certain that the last time was indeed the last time, and that it won't happen again. I am not just writing this for the sake of my other housemates who will read this (even though we did try and keep the fact that it happened again (and again) a secret originally), I really mean it when I say it this time. We got it out of our systems now, so to speak, and so will go on being just really good friends. Written while listening to One More Time by Daft Punk. No pun intended ^_^

Care Package

Books - Friends - Music I’ve received a surprise in the mail! A care package sent by Calvin all the way from Australia. It contained a variety of goodies and I really appreciated getting it. I’ve already emailed my thanks to Calvin. He has always been a great friend over the years and I even though I know he is so often busy (and/or caught up in the neurotic world of being a writer :P) am really thankful that he still takes the time and makes the effort to keep in touch. Included in this care package was a carefully constructed mix CD, and as Calvin predicted, Casual Friday by Black Leotard Front has become me new favourite song. It’s such a hip, laid-back mix; I love it. The track listing that Calvin made to accompany the CD is fantastic too, in a serial killer sort of way. I can tell he went to a lot of effort, and I’ve currently got all three pages of track titles on my wall. The care package also included a copy of The Fall by Albert Camus. I think I appreciate the book most of all, reading it while listening to the mix CD did help to "sap my complacency", as was suggested. I’m really lucky to have friends like Calvin, and I hope he knows I an very thankful for his friendship. Written while listening to Calvin’s mix CD. Fantastic stuff.

The Party Is Over

Friends - Fun - Personal - University - Work University is over. It's time to retire that category I think. I doubt I'll be writing anything else University related any time soon. I've been lazing about the last week. Well partying about is more apt a description. I decided to take last week completely off, have a holiday, a break, a brief hiatus from the stresses of the real world. So I partied hard the first weekend after my exams, and went out almost every night last week. I hardly got any sleep, and feel great for doing it. We went out to Bar BZA, The Works, Dogma, and a bunch of other places. On Friday night we went out to Ocean. We went there almost every Friday night all of last term, but hadn't been yet so far this term. It was the same as I remembered, crap music, but a lot of fun. Viki had her camera and took a bunch of pics... and here they are! First Picture, Second Picture, Third Picture, Fourth Picture. So the party is over. I've got to settle down now. My task this week, and the following week, and the week after, and for as many weeks after that as needed to succeed, is to get a job. I need to start working if I want to remain in this country. I'm going to try my hardest to stay in Nottingham, I don't want to leave here, leave the friends I've made. This will make it more difficult to get a job, but I'm going to do my best. I want to stay here. I don't know what will happen, where things will lead, but I know I want it to happen here. Written while listening to Crazy Sunshine by The Pillows.

Post-Patriotism

Friends - Fun My Australia Day went off with a bang. Drank more cans of XXXX that I can count. I wanted to be patriotic and drink a good Australian beer, more importantly a Queensland, a Brisbane beer. Of course the XXXX you get here is brewed in Scotland, but still, it's good stuff. We drank a few beers at our place first, and Nick and Little Matt from the office came round. After way too much beer we decided it would be a good idea to whip out the Absinthe. Heh well it was a good idea for most of us, but Bruce didn't take too kindly to it, and there is evidence on our front porch to prove it! This morning when I got back, the shot glasses were stuck to the table, and the absinthe had melted through the covering on the top of the table. This is seriously strong stuff. Taxis arrived; we all bundled in, and headed off to Bar BZR. Still can't beat those £2.50 triples. We drank there until last orders. We had already bought queue-jump tickets for The Works at the Grove earlier that night, so we didn't mind leaving until late. When we got into the Works we realised that it was School Daze! Lots of fit freshers dressed up in school uniforms to celebrate the start of the new term. It was a great night, and they actually played some halfway decent music. Came home and got some fantastic garlic bread from the place up the street! It's great; you get a pizza base but covered with garlic, butter and spices. So yummy. Viki and I stayed up talking and eating that for a while, before I eventually crashed out. A great night overall, a good way to celebrate my nation’s national day. Also a big shout out to Nash, who turns 23 today! Happy birthday Nash!

It's A Bit Fuzzy

Friends - Fun - University Where do I start? I’m only just sobering up. I didn’t sleep Thursday night. I was procrastinating as usual, and hadn’t done any real study yet. I had two exams the next day, and they were my last exams ever. So I stayed up all night, did a little bit of study, and then set off to Uni for my 9am exam. The exam went well, thankfully the questions I had prepared for came up, so I am pretty sure I managed to pass. I couldn’t wait to get out of there though, and as soon as 11am cranked round, I got up and fled that exam room as fast as possible. I met up with Bruce and Ben, who also had 9am lectures and we went down to the Ark, the student union bar. Let the silliness begin! We got in there, grabbed a seat, grabbed a beer, and started to kick back. That morning’s exam was Ben’s last and Bruce didn’t have another one until Saturday. Nikkie and Viki soon came and joined us, both of them having no exams to do either. And so I drank beer and got progressively drunk. While I was getting drunk, I pulled out my text book and past exam papers for Computer Security. I had my final exam starting at 4:30pm that afternoon and I was planning on doing it completely drunk! I also had to do some form of study for it. I wasn’t really worried. I figured I could go in and do most of it with my eyes closed. For an advanced subject it was pretty straight forward. However I wanted to be sure I could answer it in my increasingly drunken state. My friends thought I was crazy, but I’ve been so damn responsible my entire university career I wanted for once, for this final time, to do something really stupid. So I drank my beer, and then drank another, and drank some more. I spent almost five hours in the Ark, and I lost track of how many pints I had. I think Ben, Bruce and I bought two rounds each, but I can’t be sure. When it approached 4:30 though I left the other’s and went to my exam, almost falling over on the way. I don’t know how I managed it, but for a full hour I went into overdrive. I was in a drunken state of power writing. My booklet was almost full by the time the exam was over. When the time was up, I stood up, managed not to topple over, and triumphantly left the building. I had done it. I was finished. I was free at least. We had made plans to go out that night, so I walked straight home after my exam. The fresh air did some good in sobering me up, and it gave me time to think about my situation. Things are never going to be the same again. It's like the end of high school all over again, except I'm older, wiser, and better able to appreciate it. For some reason I had the Gurge’s Black Bugs mp3 on my phone, so I listened to that the whole way home. It wasn’t really relevant to my feelings, but it was still great to listen to. There will be many turning points in my life. Events which will shape the person I am. This wasn’t one of them. Those sorts of events are random, interactions that are spontaneous, and can change your direction forever. This was just an ending; one I knew was coming for a long time, and one I should have prepared myself for better. Anyway I’m rambling now, so I’ll stop and get on with the rest of my story. Friday night we went out to Bar BZR, but not before drinking half a bottle of Absolut Vodka and some 70 proof Czech Absinthe which really didn’t agree with me. BZR had triples for £2.50, so while I was there I had even more vodka. At about 12pm we headed out to the Works, where they played fantastic music and I danced until closing time. Most of the night is a blur. Drinking for more than 12 hours straight took its toll, and I crashed out at some point after getting home, somehow, and woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and no recollection at all of the specifics of what happened the night before. All good fun! My sore head didn’t stop me going out again the following night though. We didn’t go clubbing, instead we went to this bar called Dogma and met up with Nikkie after she went to an Ice Hockey game. Lots more drinking occurred, again I don’t remember much, but I do know that I got a taxi home early with the girls, for which Bruce, Graeme and Ben gave me lots of stick for. I am tired now. Its 3am Sunday night and there is more drinking ahead of me tomorrow. We are doing the slab challenge tomorrow, so I need to be rested and prepared for it. I’ll report back on my progress when I sober up from it ^_^ Ah my liver is going to hate me after the end of this week. I’ll start being serious come February, but for the rest of January, I am partying hard! Written while listening to Black Bugs by Regurgitator.

Another Weekend Expires

Friends - University

Thanks Calvin for the title. Calvin's (relatively) new blog can be found here.

A pretty uneventful weekend all round. Not too much in the way of distractions. Though I was awake from Friday morning at 10am till Sunday morning at 3am. I'm kinda tired now. I just got up. The weekend isn't officially over yet, but it is for me. I've really got to start doing some work. I had my Japanese exam Saturday morning. Went to it having not slept at all the night before, having not done any work at all in the days before it, and think I did alright overall. It is the first time I've ever done absolutely no preparation for an exam, but this one I didn't even need to pass, I didn't need credit for it back home, and I couldn't find the energy at all to study, so I didn't. Thankfully the work I did during the semester paid off and I'm pretty sure I scraped through a decent mark.

So now I'm on to study Financial Management, the subject whose average mark last year was 46%. Joy!

Best Friends

Friends - Quotes "a good friend will come bail you out of jail but a true friend is the guy sitting beside you saying we really fucked up this time" ~My best friend Fragma (who shamelessly ripped it off someone else)

The Hacker Comes To Town

Friends - Travel - University On Tuesday I had my Digital Business Communication exam. I probably studied less for this exam than any other exam in my entire university career except for Introduction to Chemical Engineering back in first year. I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm. Things kept on distracting me; I let them keep on distracting me. I am pretty sure I passed, but I know I didn't do well. Usually for me passing isn't the issue, what I am generally unsure of is how well I did. Yeah well this time, that's not the case. Oh well, one bright spark was that during my exam, Jimmy the Hacker flew into Nottingham East Midlands Airport from Rome... Yes just Jimmy the Hacker, not Ads in sight. I haven't really carried on my reporting about Ads other than mentioning that we met up with them in Paris and Amsterdam in December. Well he and Jimmy have travelled all around the place since then, and though Jimmy has to be back in Australia next week to start work, Ads hasn't organised anything specific to do now that he has finished Uni. So he got his plane ticket extended, and is currently off on his own doing some more travelling. I think it's a fantastic idea and wish him all the best. He said he will pop by Nottingham at some point in his travels, so I'm looking forward to that (I hope I'm still here by then). Anyway Jimmy the Hacker showed up, toting a big bottle of Absinthe from Prague. I had just come from my DBC exam, and I had some DBC coursework due the next day. It was supposed to be a 3000 work report, and at that point I had written about 500 words. So we sat around and talked for a while, not getting blind drunk and hallucinating, and then at about 10pm I started working on finishing my report. Boring I know, but even in my current state of apathy I couldn't hand in just 500 words for this coursework. Jimmy stayed another night and then headed off this morning. I don't think I was very good company, I've just buried in my books, or on my computer doing work all the time he has been here (well some of the time). He is off to London now for a couple of days before heading home, so I hope he has more fun there than he did here. All my housemates are of course studying as well, so there was really no one here to entertain him or show him around at all. Poor effort on my part I must admit. Anyway so now I am back to procrastinating, writing this entry instead of doing so much needed work. I've got a Japanese written exam at 9am on Saturday morning and then three more exams next week. Ah the life of a Uni student ^_^

Going Nowhere, Going Somewhere

Friends - Music - Personal - Quotes - University 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?' 'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. 'I don't much care where --' said Alice. 'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. '--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation. ~ Lewis Carroll, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Following on from my previous post; some things are going nowhere, because we have decided that is for the best, while other things are going somewhere, because I've finished University for good in less than two weeks, and then I have my whole world ahead of me. Also, inspired by Brendan's effort over on Digital Iris and looking for ways to procrastinate, I decided to make a quiz. So let me present Michael's Mystery Quiz!. Man I am so restless. I really can't get into the mood to study. I am in a Paul van Dyk mood at the moment, and I always listen to trance when I am attempting to study, so right now I'm listening to his We Are Alive.

Consequences

Friends - Fun - Personal This is the Internet. It's public and it's open. In the past I've tended to not to talk some aspects of my life here because they don’t concern just me and I don’t feel right talking specifics about other people without their consent. I censor myself a lot here; in particular I censor myself when it comes to girls and relationships. I don’t kiss and tell. It’s not me and never has been (ok well there have been exceptions when I’ve been really drunk, but that’s different!). I am going to talk about the following here though because, well, I feel like talking about it, and I know Nikkie won’t mind. I am not going to go into specifics; I still don’t kiss and tell. So Friday night, my housemate Nikkie came home from Leicester, where she is doing her current physiotherapy placement. I first specifically mentioned Nikkie back in April last year in this entry. Here is a picture of Nikkie from that post so you know who I am talking about. Nikkie and I have become very close over the past five or so months since we moved in together. She and I get on really well and I’ve found myself opening up to her completely. That’s a rare thing and I’m glad I found it here, I didn’t think I would be able to so quickly. Anyway so we have been getting closer and closer, and at the same time flirting with each other now and then, but nothing even really came of it. Until last night. Nikkie was desperate to go out on Friday after spending all week down in Leicester on placement, but nobody else wanted to go out because we all have exams on at the moment. I ended up being convinced though, and she and I went down to the Bag Of Nails, our local pub for a couple of drinks. We started by sitting next to each other on one of the leather couches there, and talked and talked. As the drinks started flowing we started creeping closer and closer to each other on the couch. The night progressed, it was getting pretty late, and we were getting pretty drunk. We were doing a bit of flirting, and then she suddenly kissed me. I was a little surprised, but at the same time sort of half expecting it, and I like her, so I kissed her back. After a little bit of making out we promptly went back home and, to avoid specifics, we spent the night together. My other housemates will probably read this, but that’s ok, because they found out anyway. Nikkie and I spent about ten minutes kissing at our front door without realising that our other housemate Viki was just inside around the corner watching TV. So that kind of gave the game away, plus the fact that my bed was empty all night and Nikkie’s door was firmly locked with the music blaring from inside… ^_^ So Saturday morning we woke up, made out some more while watching episode seven of the new season of The O.C. and then had a talk, went into town and sat in Starbucks and talked some more. Conclusions: Though we both had a great time, and really needed the release, what we had done was a mistake. Neither of us regretted it, but with the current situation, and future possibilities, we agreed that we shouldn’t let it happened again. We are housemates, we live with each other, we are good friends, we each have crap in our past we are running from, and for all I know I could be in a completely different part of the country in a month’s time. There are consequences to our actions, and though during the night we each said a number of times, "What are we doing? We shouldn't be doing this!", with the clarity of day the full reality of those consequences was made clear. So while my other housemates are currently giving us endless crap about it, Nikkie and I are still sharing cheeky grins about our night of passion, secure in the (rather mature) decision to make sure it is just a single night, and that’s all it will ever be. I suspect Graeme of putting out odds on when he expects us to shag next, but the way we figure it, whatever bets he takes will be on very long odds. Anyway it’s time to go to sleep, back in my own bed tonight. Written while listening to Paul van Dyk – For An Angel, on repeat.

Christmukkah

Friends - Fun - Television It's been a really full on past couple of weeks. We had Christmas in Milton Keynes with my cousin Simone. It was just like a real family Christmas, lots of great food, and great company. On boxing day we walked down to the pub while Ed and Toby tried to canoe, however ones they got to the Grand Union Canal it was frozen over, so that quickly put an end to that idea. I drank far too much and ate far too much, and overall had a fantastic time. We went up to Liverpool on the 30th to stay with my other cousin John. Again we ate to much and drank too much and had a fantastic time. New Year’s was rather laid back, but fun all the same. I called home and talked to Fragma, Wulfen, Rur and Nash which was great. I hadn't talked to some of those guys since leaving Australia so it was really good to have a long proper conversation with them. On the 2nd, Ed, Jeremy and I drove down to Nottingham from Liverpool, via North Wales (a very round about way I know, but they wanted to see castles!). Mum stayed up in Liverpool because the plan was for me to take Ed and Jezz out for the night in Notts and show them what a party town it was. So this was going to be the last time I saw mum before she went back to Australia. She cried, told me to look after myself, said she loved me, all that nice stuff. It was sad to go, I really loved seeing her again after so long, but I still needed to leave and more and more I am happy with that decision and my decision to stay. So we went down to Nottingham, where all of my housemates except Bruce had already gotten back from their holiday break. We ended up going out to Dogma and having a great night. I got very drunk, but my brothers, needed to get up early the next morning and drive back to Liverpool, on