Life is a rollercoaster

Sometimes it seems that everything is against you, here’s why…

• Monday Fail #1: Being ill but still needing to get up at 7:30am for filming
• Monday Fail #2: Not understanding a single thing in my second lecture
• Monday Fail #3: Not getting any students to talk on camera about the recent exec elections
• Monday Fail #4: Only having one short battery for the camera and needing to charge it constantly
• Monday Fail #5: Not getting the studio equipment working again
• Monday Fail #6: Not getting to sleep until 5am

But then again, doesn’t it all pay off?

• Access to Jamie Oliver’s new restaurant before it opens to interview the head chef
• Getting all the filming for MAD TV’s next episode done (pretty much)
• Having a laugh in the studio

And then there was Tuesday…

• Waking up after only 3 hours sleep
• Getting ripped off on the train
• Finding out mum and dad have food poisoning
• Finding out I don’t have a lift back to London on Wednesday

But then there are the jewels:

• Getting to see my parents and brother again
• Getting to see my sister, NIL, Alastair and Jordan again

I get so confused on days like this, but you’ve just got to roll with the punches that life serves……

• Happiness. 8 out of 10
• Tiredness. 1 out of 5
• Workload. 8 out of 10
• Last Meal. Coco pops!
• Song of the day. I’m Getting Married In The Morning - Alfie
• Thought for the day. Wedding time!
• What I’m Doing Now. Getting ready for the wedding!!!!

Things I forgot from: Shall We?

I have put up lots of pictures from my adventures at university so far this year, which include: Mike’s birthday party, Thorpe Park and Cranium Night.

• Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2039167&id=1293892814&l=2f4f21a418

I said I was going to start putting my old videos on YouTube, well I wasn’t lying. I’ve put quite a few on now:

• James’ Graduation
• Is This the Way to Amarillo
• Baby Alastair 6 Hours Old
• There’s also a recent addition from our monopoly game in fresher's week: Monopoly Time Lapse

You can also enjoy all the MAD TV episodes and out-takes to see what it’s all about

• MAD TV: http://www.youtube.com/MadTVSurrey

Enjoy :) x

Shall we?

I have a lot to talk about. The last week has been really crazy in terms of work and getting stuff done.

Lectures are ok. I’m finding it hard to stay awake in all of them, but that’s something I’ll have to work on. In terms of difficulty they could be a lot worse, there are a couple I wouldn’t say are great, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

The house. I’m getting on really well with all my housemates, but we’re all a busy bunch and I’ve haven’t seen them as often as I would like. Especially Josh who is a very busy person. Sometimes it’s nice to sit down and talk to people and that’s what a busy house doesn’t let you do.

Food. Since being back at uni this year I’ve not been bothering with cooking proper meals as much as last year. Mainly because I just don’t have the time to. I’ve been having oven food such as kievs, fish, pies and pizza. I’m not sure if that’s acceptable, but it keeps me fed.

MAD TV. We had a review session on Wednesday and I think everyone got a lot out of it. We’re currently filming for the next episode, which is due out next Sunday.

I’m keeping in touch with my friends when I can and Cranium night on Tuesday was great fun. Friday I had lunch with some chemistry friends and then went out in the evening with more chemistry friends.

I’m battling a bit of a flu today, but I’m hoping it’ll get better before the week starts up because this week is going to be BIG.

• Monday. MAD TV filming between my lectures.
• Tuesday. To London to get a lift to Chesterfield with my parents
• Wednesday. My sister’s wedding. Never been to a wedding before, really looking forward to it!
• Thursday. Back in Guildford. Probably catch up on work and do some editing.
• Friday. Labs, then in the evening either do work or go on a pub crawl, depends how much I need to do.
• Saturday. Working at Ascot for Tote.
• Sunday. Who knows!?

Next week should be the last of these crazy weeks. I’m hoping life will be a bit more sensible after this week…

• Happiness. 5 out of 10 (undecided)
• Tiredness. 3 out of 5 (the flu isn’t helping…but the clocks did)
• Workload. 8 out of 10 (undecided)
• Last Meal. Chicken (to help me swallow ibuprofen)
• Song of the day. Smokie Norful – Nothing Without You
• Thought for the day. Hope I feel better soon
• What I’m Doing Now. Talking to Becky on the phone :P xxxx

Fun & Funner

Since the last post…

• Filming for MAD TV’s first news episode of the new academic year! Watch the first episode here!
• More lectures…
• Friday labs are going better than last year’s labs, but are still not how I’d like to spend my Fridays…
• Went to Thorpe Park with my housemates Anne and Viv, my friends from uni Heather, Lauren, Sophie and Phil, and my friends from sixth form, Ben, Kevin and Murat. It was a beyond brilliant day. We had so much fun and as you can imagine the queue’s provided us with plenty of time to catch up on what’s been going on in each other’s lives. As for Thorpe Park itself, the scare mazes lived up to their high expectations and riding SAW in the dark was well worth the freezing 2 hour queue at 11pm…
• Sunday was chill day (for the second week in a row now) and I got nothing done. Other than we had a MAD TV committee meeting and finished the first episode :)
• Monday I did video in the union for Reverend & The Makers, got some brilliant shots thanks to the fresher’s who didn’t mind operating the cameras :P

This week:

• Cranium night on Tuesday
• MAD TV meeting on Wednesday
• Climbing on Thursday (for the first time in too long)
• Nothing planned for the weekend yet other than lots of work, this is catch up weekend in preparation for CRAZY “DO EVERYTHING IN 1 WEEK” WEEK next week! Fun times are ahead everyone…

Sorry for another brief bullet point post, but it’s too hard to construct sentences this early in the morning…

• Happiness. 8 out of 10 (is there a point where I’m doing to much fun?)
• Tiredness. 4 out of 5
• Workload. 7.5 out of 10 (depends what you mean by ‘workload’)
• Last Meal. Channies burger and chips
• Song of the day. Maroon 5 – Makes Me Wonder
• Thought for the day. Need to write my CV…
• What I’m Doing Now. Going to bed, literally in the next 20 seconds…

Butt-Scratcher!

I feel a lot more on top of work today. Still plenty to do (and that’s an understatement) but it’s nothing I can’t handle (so far…)

The last few days have been good for getting work done and doing things for MAD TV. It’s really exciting to be part of a new society and be there when it starts up. I’m getting a lot of input as to how the thing actually works and its all showing a lot of potential.

I thought I’d stop talking about the past for this post and give you a low down as to what’s going on in my life in the next few days and weeks:

• 14th Oct: MAD TV filming for the news
• 17th Oct: Thorpe Park Fright Nights Trip (~14 people going)
• 19th Oct: Reverend & The Makers Gig in Rubix, doing lots of video things
• 28th Oct: My Sister’s Wedding!
• 31st Oct: Working at Ascot
• 1st Nov: :)
• 13th Nov: University fireworks night
• 16th Nov to 22nd Nov: READING WEEK! NO LECTURES!
• 28th Nov: Sister’s Birthday Party in Balham
• 12th Dec: Stage Crew Christmas Dinner

That’ll give you a good idea as to what I’m up to.

• Happiness. 7 out of 10 (all we need is 36 hour days…)
• Tiredness. 3 out of 5 (I'll pay for staying up this late though)
• Workload. 6.5 out of 10
• Last Meal. Lunch for dinner!
• Song of the day. Paloma Faith – Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful
• Thought for the day. Butt-scratcher!
• What I’m Doing Now. Going to bed.

More Days Work

Sorry for the long gap between posts, I literally haven’t stopped this week.

Tuesday: A very lazy day in terms of lectures, I only had 1 hour. I spent the rest of my time editing the out-takes for the Fresher’s Angel Health & Safety Video, they’re coming along nicely…

In the evening I had two meetings, stage crew committee meeting and a MAD TV meeting. Stage Crew is coming along, we have lots of fresher's, about 40, and we have to train them all in basic health & safety so they can actually do work. As for MAD TV, it’s gone from 0 to 1 million miles an hour in 1 week. We’ve gone from a team of 3 people, to a team of 25! We’re working hard on filming the next news episode, and if all goes to plan it’ll be on the airwaves by this time next week!

Wednesday was probably my first real day of lectures. The course so far seems reasonable, much like last year, but with different stuff. I’m not really sure how the workload is going to do itself right now, but I’m working on it…

In the afternoon, we did some filming for MAD TV, a segment called “What you think” where we ask students for their opinions on a certain topic, this time it was the changes that have happened on campus over summer. We got some funny responses and it should turn into a good segment.

In the evening it was more MAD TV, we had a 3 hour workshop discussing how we wanted to go about each episode. A 2 week turnaround is very tight and is going to require everyone in the team to pull their weight. Looking forward to seeing how it all turns out!

Thursday can be summed up as follows: tiring. After 5 hours of non-stop lectures I was ready to die. I’ve got lots of reading up to do before next week, which is only tomorrow! I’ll admit I’m slightly concerned as to where I’m fitting in work between Stage Crew, MAD TV, eating and looking after the house, but once I’ve got into a routine I’ll be fine… hopefully.

Friday is now my lab day. It was the start of a 6 week project to build a stereo amplifier. Pressure is on!

In the evening I helped set up for flirt with Stage Crew before coming home and sleeping.

Saturday, up at 8am to get in to uni and set up for the Stage Crew fresher’s training. Got lots of the video equipment out to show off to fresher’s and I think it all went remarkably well. While that was going on a few of our new MAD TV crew were filming a report for the next episode. I had to go and assist them a couple of times, basically because I wanted to help too because it’s fun!

Saturday evening I went into town and celebrated Mike’s 21st birthday with him, pictures tell the story…

Today the only thing I have planned is climbing with Phil this evening. Other than that I have to decide which of the 100 things I have to do before tomorrow I should do…

• Happiness. 7 out of 10 (if it wasn’t for the work…)
• Tiredness. 2 out of 5 (the lie-in this morning helped)
• Workload. 7 out of 10 (the return of the workload!)
• Last Meal. Cereal (but it’s time for more food…)
• Song of the day. Paloma Faith – New York
• Thought for the day. I can be who you want me to be, but do you want me?
• What I’m Doing Now. Thinking about work, MAD TV, Stage Crew, climbing, my CV, placements, labs, girls…

First day back? If that’s what you want to call it…

Beth arrived on Saturday! Took her on a very long route back to the house via other people’s houses for breaks. In the evening we went out to Old Orleans restaurant for dinner. There were 9 of us in total and we had a great time. After dinner we went for drinks in town and I got to finally go in Fahrenheit 55, which is a really nice bar in Guildford. Will definitely go there again, it had a great atmosphere.

On Sunday Beth and I chilled in the house in the morning before taking Beth back to the train station. In the evening it was time for Monopoly.

If you remember back to last fresher’s week we can take this except from my blog:

“In the evening, we had a big game of Monopoly in the kitchen. Needless to say it went on for about 3 hours before we gave up and went to bed.” (27/09/08)

So this is now officially a tradition. This time we upped the anti from 11 people to 18. But we had a bigger room this time. It was good fun. We had Chinese and maybe cheated a little…

Either way it was a good night. Looking forward to our next games night, Cranium!

Monday was my first day of lectures. Now officially a second year student! Yay!

Only had one lecture, but I did a lot of reading about the course and what I’ll be studying this year. Most of it sounds really interesting, so we’ll see how long that lasts…

Sorry I’m being quite brief today, but I have so much to say being vague is the best way to go!

Finished off the day with the Stage Crew Fresher’s Meeting, got about 30 fresher’s this year, so all looks good!

Tomorrow I only have 1 short tutorial and I’m free the rest of the day. Love these slow starts… eases me in slowly.

MAD TV stuff is boiling over in the background too, got that on the go when I can.

• Happiness. 8 out of 10 (which is good considering…)
• Tiredness. 4 out of 5
• Last Meal. Chicken Kievs & chips, and leftover chilli!
• Song of the day. Hansen - Mmmbop
• Thought for the day. Life goes on…
• What I’m Doing Now. Wondering if I should get up in the morning and do work before my lecture…

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Ice skating on Thursday was fun. About 20 of us went in the end. I was the only non-chemist there, but then that’s what you get when you gate-crash a ChemSoc event! After skating we went to Nando’s and I claimed a free 1/4 chicken! I ate very well that day :)

After Nando’s I broke from gate-crashing with ChemSoc to gate-crash someone’s birthday in Channies. I don’t know them as such, but pretty much everyone I know knows him, so I think it’s justified. To be honest, I didn’t have a good time. There were lots of people there who I didn’t really know and I had a lot of “stuff” on my mind. I left at about 11:30 with Mike and walked home.

Once home me and Josh took it upon ourselves to undertake the mammoth task of washing up… everything. 2 hours later we’d finished. If nothing else it was fantastic to talk to Josh and catch up.

Yesterday was very cool. I had a meeting with MAD TV in the afternoon about filming our next episode and stuff, which made me realise how crazy busy I’m going to have to work this year…

After that Josh and I went to Wetherspoons in town to claim a beer and a burger with chips for £3.99. That’s all the convincing we needed. After chocolate fudge cake for dessert we headed over to Channies for another pint (because we could, and, technically, it was on our way home…)

Josh left me on my own to go to foam party. I was nervous about not meeting anyone in there, but that was shot when I bumped into Nick and Ollie as soon as I walked in. Then I met Laurie, Chris, Joy, Vicky, Adam, Becky, Jack and Emma and I knew I was sticking around. All in all a very, very, very good night.

• Happiness. 10 out of 10 (lets bring the scale back to normality)
• Tiredness. 4 out of 5 (I couldn’t sleep)
• Last Meal. Burger, chips and chocolate fudge cake
• Song of the day. Fragma - Toca's Miracle
• Thought for the day. Sorry?
• What I’m Doing Now. About to have a shower to 1) wake me up and 2) rid me of foam.

PS PICTURES! (I might need to start screening and vetting these soon…)

Water problems, free pizza & the craziest night of the year (so far…)

Sozies, lets crack that whip and let you peeps know what I’ve been using my time doing the last 3 days.

Monday can be summed up in 2 words: Stage Crew. I worked all day setting up an elaborate video rig for the DJ night that evening. We had 2 pit cams and 3 other cameras. It was crazy fun and I hope to do it again soon.

Tuesday was a completely different kettle of fish. After being awoken only a few hours into my precious sleep by a text I was quite tired the whole day. Went to the library with Sophie to help her buy internets for her house. After bumping into Lauren and talking to her for a bit I headed off to Tesco with Phil. Stocked up on cider :)

When I got back I got to speak to Josh for the first time in ages while I made my dinner (tuna pasta if you must know) and then had to dash off to go to comedy night in Channies (remember, student bar, yea). That was a good night, the comperé was a bit weird but the acts were good.

On Wednesday (once again after getting ridiculously small amounts of sleep, mainly my fault for talking on the phone too long) I went in to help Stage Crew setup for Fresher’s Fayre and Calvin Harris in the union that night.

Turns out that there had been a water leak to the main feed that supplies campus and the whole east side of campus was without water. This meant that unless the problem was fixed, the union would not be able to open that night for the gig. Not keen on the idea of setting up for a gig that might not happen, and one that I hadn’t signed up to do either, I met up with a load of people at Fresher’s Fayre and wandered around there for an hour or two.

Then we went back to Sophie’s house, because it’s just off campus, and had tea! One of the things we got at the fayre was a free 7” pizza from dominoes. So we went. You can imagine the queue was quite big and we had to wait a while to get our pizza’s. But when something's free, you have to expect a mass of students to appear.

After that went back home to get changed and then headed back to Sophie’s and headed off to Channies with Sophie, Phil and Julie. After a drink in there we went to the union for the Calvin Harris. I was quite excited about this one…

To summize, the night went very well. Calvin’s set was a bit meh, but the rest of the music really made up for it. I saw L.O.A.D.S of people I knew and got talking a bit more to a few people I’d met from the last few days. It was a great night and I’m glad I didn’t miss out by doing stage crew.

To top it all off I had a good nights sleep last night. Feel very refreshed and ready for a new day! Ice skating this afternoon with ChemSoc :)

Speak to you all soon. Loves, Charles

• Happiness. 13 out of 10 (just because it has to be higher than last time)
• Tiredness. 2 out of 5
• Last Meal. Breakfast!
• Song of the day. Calvin Harris – Ready for the Weekend
• Thought for the day. When am I getting my timetable!?
• What I’m Doing Now. Should tidy my room and have a shower before I have to leave in an hour :S

PS plenty of pictures are on there way, don’t worry :)