Swiss Musings

Note: This post is filled with random pictures, un-associated with the text.

Finally back in Guildford for the weekend after being in Switzerland since Monday. I’ve said this before and I will surely say it again: Sony is an amazing place to work. Since I started working there in July I can safely say that every day I go into work with a smile, looking forward to what it has in store.

^ Blood Brothers: James came to Guildford a couple weeks ago. It was really great to see him! This will have to happen again!

Working in a large company such as Sony means there is always something to do, and the work I’ve been doing has not only been varied, but also relevant to my degree. In week 3 of placement I was given the opportunity to work on this project that would entail a trip to Switzerland… now that’s not a standard request! While the trip has been postponed several times, it’s finally happening. For me, it’s not so much the fact that I get to go to Switzerland, or the fact that I was asked to go; it’s the realisation that in the last few weeks I have become a part of the project team, not just a tag-along. And it’s that integration and appreciation that I’m most grateful for.

^ A couple of pictures from the “goodbye” meal I had last weekend before I left for Switzerland.

I’ve realised recently that, as a person, I strive to be part of a team, and for my input to be valued and appreciated. If I can be my own psychiatrist for a minute, I think this all stems from secondary school where I often felt alone. I know, cue the violin, but it’s given me a new perspective on a few things. For example, I never fully felt part of Stage Crew, and because video was always considered an afterthought, I didn’t see my opinions being taken seriously. That’s probably why I don’t do it anymore.

^ Halloween… ‘nuf said

I don’t know whether it’s a sign of weakness that I only feel motivated when I know someone will appreciate my work, but I do know that I have immense pride in my work (such as videos, websites, reports, etc.) and while I appreciate constructive criticism, I can often take it more personally than intended.

^ Back in England. Did someone say party? (yes actually. Julie :P)

With MADTV recently, I’ve seen a divide between the committee and the team… And I know that last year’s team certainly felt that sometimes their effort wasn’t appreciated when reports were released late or not given as much promotion and care over as reports that committee were working on, even when it was. And I can see now how we could have communicated better, and I don’t want this years MADTV to go the same way. MADTV has had a brilliant start to the year, and it’s only going to get better and better. I just hope that the success of MADTV doesn’t jeopardise the team’s chance to learn through experimentation and have as much fun as we used to!

• Happiness. 6 out of 10 (I have my reasons…)
• Tiredness. 0 out of 5 (Woohoo! Enlightenment!)
• Free Time. 0 out of 5 (And I don’t care :P)
• Last Meal. Erm… Cereal :S
• Song of the day. Duck Sauce - Barbra Streisand
• Thought for the day. The Earth’s equator is so big that if you laid it out flat, it would circle the Earth approximately one time.
• What I’m Doing Now. Waiting until Monday, when I can go back to Switzerland :D

Just A Little Bit More

Given the time you can see I should be in bed. Especially since I need to be up at 6am to be at the Emirates stadium tomorrow…

But I wanted to continue with the story a little bit.

The day after Grad Ball I met up with Josh in town to sort out this Natwest business once and for all. I could write a new Encyclopaedia Britannia on the problems they’ve caused me in the last year, but once both Josh and I were present, it only took just over half an hour to get money out of the account. Horray! Just a shame the 21st century invention of “bank transfers” hasn’t made it to their planet yet, otherwise Josh and I would not have had to walk down the high street with just under £3,000 in cash…

Anywho, my plan for the rest of the day was to help crew with Guilfest, but to be honest with you, I fell asleep. Yup, the working week was getting to me and finally caught up. I slept for almost 16 hours straight. It was gooooooooood.

Then on Sunday I did go to Guilfest! I helped out Colin Arnold, who produced The Fallow Field. He’s currently following a band called Subsource on tour for a documentary he’s producing. I was called in to be a camera operator for him and was more than obliged. It was great fun and a real insight into how live shows are produced in the industry, instead of the rubbish stage crew way. It also gave me a chance to see a real OB van actually working in the field. Albeit palling in comparison to the 3D HD beasts at Sony, it was still interesting.

In the evening I couldn’t help but go and see The King Blues live! Got a few videos too :P Here’s my favourite song of all time:

Also have videos of my favourite poem in the world and the encore

And that was my weekend in a nutshell. Signalling the start of a new working week. I’m only a week behind myself now, I’ll try and cover last week tomorrow. Beauties such as climbing, ice skating, going home and the cabin all to come! And that work surprise that I’m sure you all know about now… :D

• Happiness. 10 out of 10
• Tiredness. 3 out of 5 (but I’ll be shattered tomorrow)
• Free Time. 0 out of 5 (actually true)
• Last Meal. Oh my God! The best roast dinner ever cooked by Tamsin’s little sister. Truly amazing :D
• Song of the day. Macy Gray – I Try
• Thought for the day. Who’s idea was it to put the weekend right at the end of the week, such a long wait…
• What I’m Doing Now. I was editing a MAD TV video coming out on Wednesday with Claire :)

Special Post #31: Thank God For That

Today was the Stage Crew AGM, and therefore my last day as VEO. My thoughts about crew have changed a lot since the Feb 16th last year when I was elected. I’ve obviously been spending far more time with MAD TV recently, so Stage Crew has been slightly neglected. But I also feel that at Stage Crew video is very much optional, and when it isn’t, MAD TV seem to be covering the gaps. Therefore, this seems like a natural progression for me since the best part of stage crew was the video, now MAD TV is fulfilling that need.

I’ll definitely continue to do video for Stage Crew when the situation calls, because it is great fun and a very different skill to MAD TV. For now, I’m happy that I have one less commitment, but realise that in the long term, today’s change will make very little difference.

I’m thankful I was given the opportunity to be on Stage Crew committee, but I didn’t really feel I had a lot to contribute at meetings and I haven’t been very active with training and promoting video. But at the end of the day, it seems that Stage Crew is very blasé about it and not really interested in investing time or money into making it better… and that’s where MAD TV has changed things.

MAD TV have made the Student’s Union realise the value of video and has the people with expertise beyond plugging things in. I really hope that MAD TV can succeed where Stage Crew failed. Only time will tell…

Friday Dawn

Morning folks!

This week has been really good fun. Labs on Tuesday and the SONY interview on Wednesday have really made this week enjoyable.

Yesterday MAD TV broadcast the union AGM live across the internet. It was a great collaboration between the union, Stage Crew and MAD TV that all came to together with unbelievable ease thanks to the help of Tolley. We had a peak of 50 people watching the online stream, which is really encouraging considering the lack of advertising it had. I can’t wait to do something like that again on a bigger scale. Can’t think what event we’d want to do it for, but I’ll be waiting…

If you’re interested you can watch the whole AGM on demand at http://union.surrey.ac.uk:8080/OnDemand/AGM2010.wmv

• Happiness. 8 out of 10
• Tiredness. 1.5 out of 5
• Workload. 7.5 out of 10
• Last Meal. Chicken poppets and a fajita courtesy of Will :)
• Song of the day. John Mayer – Say
• Thought for the day. The future’s only a second away
• What I’m Doing Now. Heading on to campus for another productive work day before relaxing at The Stoke for a live band and 2 for 1 pizzas tonight :D

Gone Fishing…

Typical Mondays…

I did some preparation today for my interview on Wednesday, which got me less confident about getting the job. Either way, I know I am capable of getting it, it’s just how that compares to the other candidates that I’m not so sure about.

I also had my Computer Graphics Module. More really interesting stuff, but lots to get my head around. Which tends to be the story all round at the moment.

Then stage crew in the evening was my weekly reminder that I really don’t have time for crewing at the moment. That hasn’t stopped me getting involved with all the video I can, which this week entails filming and webcasting the union AGM on Thursday.

Then on into the night Josh cooked a great casserole thing which continues our new trend of cooking together when we can. Then we had a very funny trip to Tesco which included a girl being buried in crisps by her mates :D

Today was a busy day, and was one of those “1 step forward, 2 steps back” kind of days. Still, the weekend holds lots of promises to get things done…

• Happiness. 8 out of 10
• Tiredness. 4 out of 5
• Workload. 8.1 out of 10
• Last Meal. Josh Casserole Surprise!
• Song of the day. Katrina & the Waves – Walking on Sunshine
• Thought for the day. Test the water, and if it’s warm, put on your sexiest swim suit and go paddling!
• What I’m Doing Now. Failing to install Windows 7 on my PC :(

The Devil Makes Work For Idle Minds

Friday went really well. I’m very happy with the presentation we gave in the afternoon and then I submitted a large group project to get that finished. Sound like cause for celebration? Josh and I thought so. Obviously I remember the entire evening crystal clear and no alcohol was involved at all. The fact that the following morning half a case of cider had gone missing was pure coincidence. But seriously, it was fun to relax with Josh for a bit before going to the union. It seems like we’re forever doing work together sometimes…

Saturday night I went climbing, only the gym was closed so I went to Sophie & Hannah’s house instead. I love those impromptu evenings where you end up catching up with friends you haven’t seen in ages.

Sunday Mum, Dad & Beth paid a visit and cooked Sunday Lunch for the entire house. First time we’ve all sat down for a meal together and it was great. That evening Josh, Anne and played UNO for about 6 hours, brought back lots of memories from sixth form when I’d play it every day :)

The week started with some filming on Monday, just a note: If you’re filming a radio advert, you don’t need a camera and autocue! It was good fun anyway and Adam and I chance to bounce around plenty of cool ideas for future MAD TV reports.

Monday evening I had 2 Stage Crew meetings. They went on for hours and I didn’t really have anything to contribute to any of the discussions, I felt slightly surplus…

I got home and wanted to relax, what better way than to play UNO! Anne is good at UNO, and talking, so it wasn’t a shock that 3am rolled around and we were still there nattering…

Tuesday I decided to check off some errands I’d been meaning to do for ages. I got the brakes on my bike tightened and collected my tripod (the last of a line of self-bought Christmas presents after my camcorder and external hard drive). In the afternoon I ventured onto campus to edit a MAD TV report and then attended a MAD TV meeting.

I could talk for hours about MAD TV and the exciting things happening with it. There’s so much to do, and I find it all fascinating. I find myself wishing that I didn’t have to do my course so I spend all my time doing MAD TV. That says just as much about MAD TV as it does my dislike for my course at the moment…

Tuesday evening I helped Stage Crew setup comedy night. I used to love comedy night last year, and I went to it every week. I’m not sure if it’s because it doesn’t seem as funny as it used to, or because I don’t live 20 seconds walk from it any more…

MAD Wednesday was just that. I uploaded a new segment called “Assemble!”, which will eventually act as a series of adverts for MAD TV where we all gather together upon hearing Yas & Mike shouting “Assemble!”. I’m looking forward to releasing more in the future.

Then in the evening was another MAD TV meeting and then long talks into the night about what we could do to advertise MAD TV and progress on some of the bigger reports we’re working on.

That brings us to today. One lecture this morning reminds me how stupid our course is: Two of our lecturers have missed several lectures and the lecture this morning was a catch up. But we weren’t told which lecturer it was a catch up for. To be fair, when she turned up she did only have one leg, which might have been the reason for her absence.

Looking ahead at my schedule, I’m pretty busy until the 20th February with formative tests (there the ones that don’t actually count towards anything), coursework and MAD TV things. But I’ve planned another amazing boat trip for Easter! It’s going to be mega :D

• Happiness. 6 out of 10
• Tiredness. 2 out of 5
• Workload. 9 out of 10
• Last Meal. My 4 hour lunch: sandwiches, grapes, yogurt, chocolate, crisps…
• Song of the day. The Kooks - Watching The Ships Roll In
• Thought for the day. Brand new! The same as before, but slightly different.
• What I’m Doing Now. Not sure, either: Not doing revision, not doing coursework, not applying for placements, not going to Tesco or looking forward to seeing Julie later (:

Special Post #26: Still Charles

This last year I have learnt so much about myself that I thought it worth wile sharing a few gems…

• Alcohol. This year saw me get drunk on a few occasions. I think it’s fair to say I have now become a typical student, and it’s all thanks to cider!
• Confidence. I have definitely become a more confident person this year, and I put it all down to my wonderful friends who are there to support me through everything. People are good really, so why worry about what they think about you?
• Friends. Leading from the last point. This year has been the year of friends is so many ways, but it’s great to be able to know so many people and hang out with different groups of people. Housemates, ex-housemates, stage crew, MAD TV, course mates, mates from home, family… the list goes on.
• Independence. Going to university kind of throws you in the deep end some what and this year I found my sea legs.
• House. I’m living in a house! Enough said.
• Birthday Success. My birthday party had so many of my friends there and I genuinely had one of the best times of my life so far. It’s how every birthday should be spent: with the people you want to get older with.
• GuilFest Responsibility. Being given a stage to changeover for 3 days was a big challenge and I loved every minute of it.
• Trust. Being given committee positions on Stage Crew and MAD TV meant a lot to me.
• Not Enough Time. Seriously, there were not enough hours in the day this year. It’s all that trust I tell you…
• Stress. You’ve got to learn to deal with it. I’m managing it so far, but being given so much to do can really get you at times…
• Girls. I’ve hidden this in the middle so no-one sees it :P
• Go With The Flow. Gone are the days when I needed to know every intricate detail of what I was doing, I’m much happier now to roll with it. Sure I still plan my days, but that’s a necessity to keep me on track.
• Less OCD. A lot less. I used to obsess about little details, but when time is against you, you learn what is essential and what is a waste of time. I still obsess over a few things, like my calendar and  having to have volume in multiples of 5.
• Delegating. With all this trust, I’ve had to trust others with the work I’ve been given. I delegate things I previously would have done myself. Especially for MAD TV where I’m relying on a whole team of people to get the job done.
• Phone. Over the last year I’ve got to using my phone a lot more. Where previously £5 of credit would last me 3 months, I now have a £10 a month contract that just about gets me by. How did I ever live without this I don’t know!

Who knows what I’ll  learn in the next year, but whatever it is, I’m looking forward to finding out!

• Happiness. 7 out of 10
• Tiredness. 2 out of 5
• Workload. 8 out of 10 (but not for now…)
• Last Meal. Sugar Puffs
• Song of the day. Ke$ha – Tik Toc
• Thought for the day. Bring your own lampshade...
• What I’m Doing Now. Waiting for the New Years party!

Special Post #25: Top 40 Moments 2009, Part 4

This is part 4 in a mini-series of posts that looks into the best year of my life, two thousand and nine. This is the gripping finale to the countdown of the top 40 moments of the year. These are my top 10 moments of 2009…

Before reading any more, make sure you’re up to date with 40 down to 11 by looking at the last 3 posts.

Right, here goes nothing!

#10: 10 Days Of Consecutive Drinking During Fresher’s Week

This year’s Fresher’s week laughs in the face of last years! Not only did I mange to make this one last 10 whole days, but I avoided the awkwardness of being a fresher while still meeting new people and having a great time. Not only was a great end to the summer, but it was a great way to get back into uni life!

• Day 1: Channies with Julie. Catching up on summer while drinking Kopparberg
• Day 2: Sophie, Julie & Phil come round to my house for Korma (and more drinking!)
• Day 3: Chesney Hawkes in the union. I did video, but also saw more of my friends again
• Day 4: Citrus in the union
• Day 5: Comedy Night
• Day 6: Calvin Harris! Great night!
• Day 7: Open Mic Night
• Day 8: Wetherspoons with Josh & Foam Party!
• Day 9: Beth comes down. Meal at Old Orleans, then a few bars
• Day 10: Monopoly finishes a great week.

#9: Becky Making A Surprise Appearance At My 20th

My entire 20th birthday was too brilliant for words. I love my friends, and there is no better way to celebrate turning twenteen than having a big BBQ!

#8: Sophie Helping Me Buy A New Wardrobe On Oxford Street

That day was lots of fun. I learnt that girls know what they’re doing when they go shopping!

#7: A specific 10 seconds of Sunday 1st November

I was waiting for my train at Greenwich train station. Never has a train arrived two minutes early in my life! Typical, exactly when you want it to be late…

#6: The MAD TV Social

Another great night to add to the portfolio. Nandos for dinner, then off to Bar Med, Wetherspoons, Flares and finally Dusk. I didn’t have too much to drink, just enjoyed the night.

#5: Seeing My Sister Getting Married

Truly a great day! If you told me a year ago that this was going to happen this year, I wouldn’t have believed you. But yet, there it is.

#4: Drinking With Jake At Becky’s Birthday

What a night! I can comfortably say that my sister should turn 30 more often!

#3: Wednesday Night On The Boat With Phil, Jake & All The Cider

What happens when 3 guys decide that all the cider has got to go? Hilarity ensues… Highlights of this evening were cheesecake in Jakes face, Jake failing at climbing a ladder and ask Jake about the other one :D

Since this is the last boat memory in this list, I thought now would be a good time to point to “the boat video”, enjoy it if you haven’t already :)

#2: Somerset House With Sophie

I have a love for London, and exploring the sights such as Covent Garden, Somerset House, Tate Modern, Southbank and more all in one day was overload! And on top of that Sophie and I had some great conversations. Combining my two favourite things in life, London and conversation, is what made this day second to none. Well, second only to…

#1: The Longest Conversation Ever With Josh In April

I had come down to Guildford a week early after the Easter break to get a head start on revision (because it wasn’t getting done at home). Josh thought this whole revision lark could be useful too so he came and joined me for two days. At 1pm on the first day Josh came over to go to Tesco. At 2am we we’re still talking… We talked about everything: girls, parents, university, the course, cooking, getting old, our pasts and god knows what else. I’ve always felt this conversation is what makes me and Josh such good friends even today. We do spend surprisingly little time with each other considering we live together and are on the same course. But all I can hope is that we continue to be friends for a long time to come…

So that concludes my top 40 moments of 2009. While you’ve been reading this you may have noticed some glaring omissions (such as getting my results), but there will always be some gaps. There are only 40 in this list after all, and 2009 was littered with memories that any other year would have made number 1…

Special Post #24: Top 40 Moments 2009, Part 3

This is part 3 in a mini-series of posts that looks into the best year of my life, two thousand and nine. This part continues to countdown the top 40 moments of the year. We’re at number 20, so lets go!

If you haven’t, be sure to check out the first 2 parts of this countdown before you continue!

#20: The Boat Breaking In Rugby

On the first part of the boat trip, while Ben, Kevin & I were on board, the boat broke. We’d already spent a day in Rugby to celebrate Ben’s 19th Birthday, and we woke up early the next morning to pull a long day to make up the time we lost by not moving. However, the boat usually does something when you put it in gear…

A call to the 4th emergency service, Steven, and it transpires a part had broken on the drive shaft. So now what do we do? Go to McDonalds and abuse their free wi-fi of course!

Steve managed to fix the boat in record time, and that evening we were off. And we didn’t stop until midnight! There’s nothing like a spot of night-time boating!

#19: Juggling Changeovers & The King Blues At Guilfest

Guilfest was an amazing week. I learnt a lot and loved moving all the equipment for each band on Stage 3.

The other best part of Guilfest was seeing The King Blues. They are definitely one of my favourite bands of 2009 (number 3 according to last.fm)

#18: Apocalypse With Jordan & Barry

So funny standing at the top of Apocalypse, when Barry has been trying to persuade Jordan to go on it for ages, and seeing him drop one in his pants! Laugher ensued for ages!

#17: Queuing Hours For SAW At Thorpe Park

This was such a good day with my mates. I’ve been wanting to have a big trip to Thorpe Park for ages, but every time I organise it people let me down. Not this time.

10 of us in total, and we had a great time! Fright Nights at Thorpe Park have always been a father and son affair, but this year I branched out and it was fantastic. Even the 3 hour queue for SAW at 11pm at night was fun with Anne, Viv, Phil, Lauren, Heather, Ben, Kevin, Murat and Sophie for company :)

#16: First MAD TV Studio Session

Setting up the studio was a great experience, even if it took hours to get none of it working! And then filming with Yasna and Mike couldn’t have been funnier!

#15: Showcasing A Video I Edited To 200 People

The Fresher’s Angel Health & Safety was shown to 200 students at the briefing. It was the biggest audience I’d ever had, and it went down really well :)

#14: Standing on the back of the boat in the rain with Becky

In fact, standing on the back of the boat with Becky, full stop. I love talking to my sister. And where better to do it than watching the English countryside slowly pass you by and without a care in the world…

#13: Anne Arriving At The House… Our First Proper Conversation

This is a good one. I went back to Guildford a week early to get myself sorted. On the second night, who turns up but Anne! Just stopping over on her way to Birmingham to see Viv, but that didn’t stop us having a good natter. It was one of those impromptu moments that got better and better. I came away so happy that I was living with Anne, and looking forward to the year even more!

My housemates…. an anagram for “a thyme mousse” (it’s true!)

#12: That Late-Night Talk With Barry About Life

Barry and I often have these epic conversations these days. And when I say about life, that only really means one thing: Girls. This one can be picked out because the hours just melted away and I’d been waiting for it for a while.

#11: Last Day At University 2009

The most recent moment in this list doesn’t quite make it into the top 10. It was a great night and I can only hope for many more in the future!

Only 10 to go, and they’re the best 10. I don’t want to give away too much, but from now on they’re all really close, and it was a real toss up to the number 1. But don’t worry, I haven’t copped out, there is a number 1, and it’s definitely the best moment of the year! Come back tomorrow at 4pm for the answer!

Special Post #22: Top 40 Moments 2009, Part 1

This is part 1 in a mini-series of posts that looks into the best year of my life, two thousand and nine. In this part I start to go back a remember the moments that have stuck with me.

For the first few posts in this series I’m going to be counting down my top 40 moments of 2009. I’ve put a lot of thought into this list because it’s something I want to get right. But what is a ‘moment’?

I’m seeing a moment as a very short space of time. I don’t want any of this “the boat trip was amazing”, that’s too vague (although it was). I want to talk about specific events, small fractions of time, that define the moods we have and the time we call “the best times”. So lets get started:

#40: Building Josh’s Computer

I’m kicking off the list with one of the many great moments of summer. I went to Josh’s house to help him build his computer. It was a geeky evening, but we had a good time slotting everything in and I think I managed to teach Josh a thing or two about how a computer works

#39: Getting My Files Back

You may remember my post back in January about losing all my files. Well it was more than a relief when I managed to get them all back!

#38: Sunday Night Live

Back in February I ran video for a gig in Rubix. We had a total of 10 cameras and 6 people operating. It was definitely the most successful video rig I’ve ever ran and it was amazing fun. There are plans to do another one of these next year, which I’m really looking forward to.

#37: That Afternoon With Three Cakes

The afternoon where Phil and I baked three cakes between us while watching the Grand Prix. Simpler times…

#36: Pimms Next To The Thames With Heather & Lauren

Drinking a pitcher of Pimms with Heather & Lauren at my favourite pub next to the Thames.

#35: Southbank With Lauren After Avenue Q

I love walking down Southbank at night, and it was great to share that Lauren.

#34: Walking Into The House & Knowing I Live There

This is a bit of a weird one, because it happens almost every day. I just love that feeling. And the first time I put the key in the door was magic.

#33: Being At Merry Hill With Sam, Matthew, Kevin & Ben

This is the first moment from the boat trip, believe me there are plenty more to come! This was right at the humble beginnings, the first day, when we went to the cinema to see The Hangover and had a meal, a brilliant film.

#32: Climbing The Trees In Sam’s Garden In Scotland

The first time I’d seen Sam in literally years! So great to catch up.

#31: Messing With Chairs With Josh While We Were ‘Revising’

Wheelie chairs can provide a good distraction from revision, especially when you’ve been revising for over 5 hours straight!

Come back tomorrow for the 30-21 greatest moments, including many more boat memories, snow and a pink bench :O

Those 9 days: Part 1

The last 9 days have been hectic in more ways than possible to describe here, but hell, lets give it a go!

Friday 11th December

It all starts a week and a half ago. A full day of labs where we finished the experiment early and got full marks. That put me in a good mood to go shopping at Tesco. While I was in Tesco there was a power cut, meaning I had to wait ages before the checkouts started working again… on my way back home all the street lights were off, it was very strange. Just as well I’d bought some bike lights from Halfords 2 days prior! Once I got back home I invited a friend over for stroganoff!

Later in the evening I went to Rubix, largely to see 2 of Sophie’s best friends from back home who had come to visit for the weekend. Sophie always talks about Ana and Carina, and they came over last Christmas for a day or two, but with labs and stage crew I didn’t ever get to see them. It was one of those times when I felt like we were friends before we’d even met, and it was great to finally put faces to names and get to know each other. All in all, it was a great night. Sophie’s friends were genuinely such nice people I was taken aback at first and then annoyed at myself that I didn’t find time to see them last year!

Saturday 12th December

After getting no more than 3 hours sleep I was up for a MAD TV meeting to discuss a website that we plan to build over Christmas as a central place to hold all our content. It was an interesting discussion, but had to be cut short because one of the guys had to leave. So I went home and went back to sleep. That evening I went back over to Sophie’s to see her friends again before they left on Sunday morning. Ana baked some cakes and I ate some cakes…

I left there at about 6pm to go to the stage crew Christmas dinner. It was a black tie event, and all of stage crew pretty much go. I don’t have much to say about the dinner, apart from it was a really good night for a few reasons: the food was good, I was bought a lot of drinks, half price drinks in the union was amazing, managed to get to subway before it closed at 3am…

It’s interesting to compare this year’s stage crew dinner to last. Last year I didn’t drink alcohol at all, and I had a good time. But this year was very alcohol-fuelled, and I loved it! It’s not just the alcohol, but when everyone else is drinking and you’re not, it’s never as fun, and I hate to say it but you don’t feel as included in everything. Crew dinner was one of the first times I’ve been out this year and just sat in a bar and talked to people, for literally hours, and that’s what I really liked about it.

There’s loads more to talk about… we’ve got Snow White, dancing, shopping, cake, parties and lots more still to come! Part 2 coming soon!

None of the above

Once again I’ve found myself having the time of my life, having experiences I will carry through the rough times and learning more about myself every single day.

MAD TV has got it’s knickers in a twist over how to distribute it’s content and the best way to produce high quality, relevant and informative reports with the limited equipment and small team we currently have. It was a stark realisation today when Mike and I were looking at Exeter University’s Television Station, XTV, which is run by 160 students and produces over 100 hours of content a year, that MAD TV has a huge potential and a long way to go! The last 2 months have been a sort of “proof of concept” and now we need to re-asses what we know, where we’re heading and how we can most effectively get there. I love having such a big input into what could potentially be a lasting legacy on Surrey, which in years to come I can be proud to say I had a big part in making a reality. It’s all really exciting stuff!

Anyway, that’s enough about MAD TV (until the next paragraph :D). I want to mention a bit about Stage Crew. I filmed a live music night on Monday, which was the first time I’ve used stage crew equipment for a month or so now, and I realised just how old it is. After doing Winter Happenings on Saturday with proper cameras and a professional setup, it seemed like going back to nursery and playing with the building blocks with letters on. I still enjoyed it, and want to do it again for the experience of live mixing, but I’m going to need to talk to the Technical Manager about possibly upgrading equipment in the future. It sounds like a MAD TV and Stage Crew collaboration might be on the cards…

MAD TV does seem to be creating a stir around the union offices, as a lot of people see it as filling a hole in the union’s media outlets and also potentially providing an invaluable service to societies and other groups of students who have an interest in getting events filmed. This is the 21st century after all, and not having a video service/TV station just seems archaic.

But the last 4 days haven’t just been MAD TV, although over 15 hours of MAD TV meetings in 3 days might make it sound like it has. Monday started in the now usual way of going to the media labs and spending 3 hours working. I had Maths coursework and Lab prep as my main workloads this week, and I’ve managed to get them both done!

Apart from work, and lectures, and MAD TV, and Stage Crew, there was also my life to lead this week. It seems like my life requires a lot of my time as well, so I can’t just put it on hold. But that’s a good thing because I’m enjoying my life at the moment, I just wish I had more time to dedicate to it. It’s not that I don’t consider MAD TV and all that as part of my life, because it is and without it my life wouldn’t be half as great as it is, but I just feel sometimes I need to have time I can spend how I please, with the people I please. And I bring this up a lot, but for me the most important thing right now is people. I want to spend time with people, learn from people and be able to relax and enjoy being me, in my comfort zone, without being pressured or pushing my boundaries…

In a world where all I want to do is learn and better myself, it’s the time spent making other people smile that makes my life complete.

• Happiness. 8 out of 10
• Tiredness. 3 out of 5, only had 4 hours of sleep last night :'(
• Workload. 8 out of 10, feel on top of it, but still have to organise my placement!
• Last Meal. Steak & Ale pie with loads a’ chips!
• Song of the day. Three Days Grace – Pain
• Thought for the day. “Can’t we just borrow a bit of the film…”
• What I’m Doing Now. Organising things and catching up on what’s happening

Cute thing 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bmhjf0rKe8

Cute thing 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErMWX--UJZ4

No Warranty

I could bore you with what I’ve been up to in the last two weeks, but I'm not going to.

In the last two weeks I have been frustrated with my course slightly because of the lack of digital media related stuff I'm doing. It’s turned into an Electronic Engineering degree which is not what I wanted to do! I wanted to play with video camera, learn how to animate 3D graphics and perform complex digital processing in cool ways. All I end up doing is op-amps, transistors and Fourier series. I don’t want to protest too much because I understand that it’s all valuable to know. But I spent all of last year tolerating it in the knowledge that I would do more media topics this year. All I ask for is a balance of electronics and media. not 100% electronics.

In a couple weeks time we start a 3 week media lab on microphone response, I’m looking forward to that 6 hours a week where the title of my course may actually bear some relevance to the content...

But it’s ok, because I’ve been making my own course. Thanks to MAD TV I get my fix of filming and editing. Our 2 week schedule of news is very tight and I end up finding myself organising things on a daily basis. Editing is very time-consuming also and I'm slightly concerned I’m not spending enough time working.

The problem is I love MAD TV too much, so I end up spending my time working on that. And I don’t see it as a waste of time because it’s all things that need to be done. But I have several piles of course-related work that I should dedicate more time to, but because it doesn’t have such a strict timeframe, I end up pushing it to the back of the queue. I need to start prioritising MAD TV things less. I have a technical team of 10 or so that do a lot of work for me, but they require organising and that takes time too.

Then there is stage crew. I’ve neglected stage crew recently in favour of MAD TV because stage crew has a large enough in-take of fresher’s to handle itself and there are enough experienced crew around to take control. And also as VEO, there haven’t been any band nights for the last 2 weeks to get involved. I know I shouldn’t only do video, but I don’t want to turn up for a gig that already has enough crew when I could be spending my time more effectively elsewhere. Saying that I will be helping with laser quest on Tuesday after the fun we had last year I’m really looking forward to it again :)

• Happiness. 7 out of 10
• Tiredness. 2 out of 5
• Workload. 8.5 out of 10
• Last Meal. Cereal
• Song of the day. Linkin Park – Bleed It Out
• Thought for the day. “They’ll come in without a warranty and take it away!”
• What I’m Doing Now. Sitting my my pyjamas :P

PS: Your chances of losing the lottery are: 99.999992848876%

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…

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 :)

Back – Bigger & Better Than Ever!

So I arrived in Guildford last Thursday evening and since then I haven’t stopped.

One of my latest endeavours is Technical Director of MadTV. MadTV is a student-run news team who produce a regular student news program to be distributed online. It’s a very new team, only setup last year, and still finding its way in terms of schedule and its place in the union media channel. MadTV’s latest challenge is to produce a health & safety video for the fresher’s angels briefing. Without going into a sub-explanation on what fresher’s angels are, they are essentially students who have offered to help fresher’s move in to their accommodation on moving in day by carrying boxes, directing traffic and so on.

On Sunday we filmed the footage we needed for the video using a very nice camera hired from the Media Labs. I then took that home and have been slowly editing it for the last day. It’s looking good and it’s great to be learning how to use a new editing package at the same time. Oh, did I mention the briefing is on Friday? And there will be 230 people there to watch it. Forget the premiere at my birthday party, this is it: Filmed, edited and shown in only 6 days. Bring it on!

As it happens I’m also a fresher’s angel and have to attend the briefing despite having made the video! I think that’s funny.

What else have I been doing? As if that wasn’t enough. Well besides from unpacking (which I assure you is done… mostly) I’ve been visiting other people’s houses. Turns out most of the people I know are this side of campus anyway, so I’m really quid’s in on the whole situation.

I’ve also realised that a 20 minute walk to university from my house is a 5 minute cycle ride, love it. Haven’t been on my bike in ages, and it’s great to be on it again.

It’s great to be back one year later. I feel so much more focused now, I know what to expect and I’m still pushing my boundaries in terms of the MadTV video and some of the things I’m organising with Stage Crew for fresher’s week. Busy. Yes. But I wouldn’t want it any other way…

• Happiness. 10 out of 10 (couldn’t be happier)
• Tiredness. 5 out of 5
• Last Meal. Spaghetti on toast
• Song of the day. Taylor Swift – Love Story
• Thought for the day. If I’m this busy now, what about when I start lectures again?
• What I’m Doing Now. Editing the H&S video and looking forward to another very busy day tomorrow. Might get quieter after that… depending on how tomorrow goes…

Busy Week: Monday

Looks like I’m in for a busy one this week. Here’s the lowdown:

• Monday: Stage Crew AGM. I’m going to go for the post of Video Equipment Officer. I’ll tell you how it goes.
• Tuesday: MAD TV meeting. Looks like I’m going to start helping out with the University’s own video channel, as a technical helper of course. Video editing and filming, post-production and stuff. Looking forward to it.
• Tuesday: Can’t forget the usual climbing!
• Wednesday: Plan the epic 3 week project that I have to start work on next week!
• Wednesday: Media labs. A new club where media engineers get together and play with the cool equipment the uni has!
• Thursday: My favourite brother is in town!
• Friday: I guess this is the day I have to catch up on the work I should have done during the week.
• Saturday & Sunday: A whole weekend of Stage Crew Training, learning how to do loads of things and organising an entire gig from the ground up.

All of this and the usual lectures and assignments to boot! I love being busy!

• Happiness: 7/10
• Workload: 8/10
• Last meal: Soup and baguette for lunch (not a whole baguette, that would be crazy!)
• Thought for the day: Why is texting so hard?