Tag Archives: life

I am currently sitting at my computer, I have beside me a pot of green chai tea which is slowly brewing its way to lethal strength (the third mug is always a killer). I have a couple of text books open, as well as a few web pages for further references, and word is open with the beginnings of my essay already in place. I have Jack Johnson playing quietly in the background, and it’s just gone midnight.

In about an hour I hope to have finished the essay, then I can grab a few hours of much needed sleep. Right now though, I’m awake and rather looking forward to spending some time being productive. yay!

I think the main reason I’m in such a good mood is because mission week has begun, and today was really good. I will have to write a proper review of events, and there will be recordings of most of the talks available if anyone is interested. Although he hasn’t given the talks yet, I can already guarantee that Jay Smith’s lunch bar and afternoon lectures on wednesday will be excellent and well worth a listen, that is if you can’t make it there on the day!

I’ve had a pretty manic weekend, in which I’ve been busy almost the entire time and yet haven’t really gotten any work done.

There will be no magic case entry this weekend as I’m about to go out yet again and desperately need an early night in preparation for mission week.

http://xkcd.com/383/

This morning I had my one and only January exam, and it went surprisingly well! Last night I began my revision (actually, that’s not true, I’d done a bit before then, but not much), and I got so into it that before I knew it the clock said 3am. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling very sleepy, and ended up doing a little more revision, a little messing around, and a little bit of productive other stuff. I eventually went to bed at about 5:30, and read until 6 when I finally went to sleep, only to be woken 2 hours later by my alarm.

Despite that, I felt fairly alert during the exam, and all that last minute cramming really payed off. Me and Luke decided that we were probably going to get 60% or more on the paper (he did better than me for sure though, because he actually revised all week!), which we were both rather pleased about. To celebrate our first and final exam we went to the pub and had some lunch, followed by a few hands of rummy.

I was vaguely planning on taking a nap in the afternoon, but I got caught up in bits and pieces and before I knew it 6pm came around and I headed out to a little Alpha party! It was basically a reunion for all the people who had been involved in the alpha course CCL ran in October-December, and all of the other church leader people were invited which meant I got to go and meet all the lovely folks who had been coming along. What actually happened was I sat with the youth and kept them under some sort of control for the evening, which was quite fun in itself, but meant I didn’t really meet any of the adults which was a shame.

Now I’m going to go to bed, and in the morning I shall begin on my long list of things I absolutely must do before the end of the week, otherwise I will surely fail something or other!

It’s currently 8:30 on the last friday of term, and I’ve been holed up in my room since just after lunch working on my dissertation. It has not been terribly fun, but it’s really my own fault for not spacing my workload out over the whole term properly.

Linda Marshall rang me earlier to let me know that I’d been accepted onto relay next year, and that I will be at Leicester Uni. That was pretty good news, it certainly takes a weight off my mind knowing exactly what’s going on next year. Now I just need to sort out my living arrangements and start raising the finances for the year (I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about that in the future!).

In a few minutes my house will be filled with CU people, which will be kinda nice. At that point I’m going to take a break from typing and pop downstairs to hang out, although not for too long as I really do need to get this work finished tonight.

After today it’s officially the holidays, which is great because it means I won’t have the pressure of this interim report deadline, and I’m going to be spending tomorrow hanging out with some guys from church, followed by hanging out with some other guys in the evening over a nice game or two of poker. I might even manage to squeeze in the mens breakfast at 7am, depending on how late I’m up working.

I was determined this year to get back to my Tennyson boys roots, and be the sociable house again. So far this term we have done the following:
Open house in week 1 (roughly 1 million people turned up)
Mens breakfast on Saturday of week 2 (roughly 10 people turned up)
Had some lovely ladies round on Wednesday of week 3 (roughly 2 people turned up)

As well as the odd random drop in, which is always good.

And tonight we are hosting the first official CU lads night of the year, which will involve watching the rugby (of course), and then much geekery and playing of computer games.

I feel like we’ve been doing pretty well so far, but of course there is always room for improvement. It is my intention to ensure that we have at least one guest around for dinner per week, something we haven’t really managed yet. And beyond that, I’m planning on running a regular mens breakfast on Saturday mornings, probably starting after houseparty. Although this may turn into a mens brunch, depending on how much the lovely first years object to waking up before midday on Saturday!

Anyway, I have to get back to cleaning the house in preparation for the madness that will ensue later.

Much to my surprise, Jordan (one of my new housemates) rather enjoys “pansy girly music”. I discovered this a little while ago when he played me some Brooke Fraser, who I hadn’t heard before, but rather liked.

For those of you who don’t know, “pansy girly music” is a genre which I made up. It basically consists of solo female artists with really good voices who sing good songs with good lyrics. The reason I call it “pansy girly music” is simply because it’s a fairly girly style of music, and certainly most of the girls I know enjoy it.

At the moment there are 4 pansy girly artists who I am enjoying listening to, and I think you should check them out too. They are;
Brooke Fraser
Ginny Owens
Sara Groves
Nichole Nordeman

It’s 1am, and I think it’s about time that I admitted that I have a problem.

I will go to sleep in a few minutes, fully intending to wake up at 7am when my alarm goes off, and then immediately get out of bed, have a shower, get dressed, do a short Bible study over breakfast, make some sandwiches for lunch, and then head off to work on time (i.e. without having to rush).

The reality it that I will wake up in the morning at 7am when my alarm goes off, I will clamber out of bed and walk across to my alarm clock, I will then hit snooze and clamber back into bed for 10 minutes. I will repeat this until it is 8am, at which point I will fail to have a shower (no time), I will rush down some breakfast (assuming I have any milk in the fridge), and I will rush out of the house to work. I will feel horrible all day from not having gone through any sort of morning routine, and I will be annoyed with myself for once again failing to do that Bible study.

If I had gone to bed a few hours ago, after watching that TV program which finished at 10:30, then I probably wouldn’t have a problem with the morning. What actually happens is that I put another TV program on and keep watching until 1am, or sometimes even later. I will get 6 hours sleep instead of a more sensible amount, and I will make some excuse in the morning and pretend that I’ll do it all properly tomorrow.

It’s not like there’s even anyone else in the house at the moment to keep tabs on me, so there really isn’t much incentive to change. I’m a bit of a loser really!

Well, goodnight!

In general, I dislike companies who are trying to sell me stuff, however I just received the most fantastic phone call from Virgin Media.

See, they took over NTL about a year ago now, and since then I have been pretty pleased with their service, and I recently moved to a very nice package deal where I get phone and broadband for £20 a month.

The phone call I received was from their sales department, and the conversation went something like this: (paraphrased)

Sales Person (SP): Hi there, I’m from Virgin Media!
Me: Hi…
SP: I’m just calling to see if I can save you any money, what package do you have at the moment?
Me: I have phone and broadband for £20 a month.
Long Pause…
SP: Right, you’re on a really good deal at the moment, and I can’t save you any more money.  Thankyou for your time… bye!
Me: Bye!

How fantastic is that!

I discovered something fantastic at work today. Namely that one of the conferences coming up in a few weeks is a massive anime convention, in which I will get to see lots of geeks dressed up as anime characters.

Right now I can’t imagine having a better summer job than this!