Norman Ralph

The Christmas festivities are over, the New Year hangovers have subsided and 2008 is nearly a week old. This seems like the perfect opportunity to take a look back at 2007 and the people, events and ideas that made it.

Christmas and New Year are always a time for reflection and nostalgia and this year was no different. My family was all together for the first time in a while, including some of the new additions. I had an enjoyable time with several highlights – firstly, I caught up with some old friends and relived some of those moments from my youth that I miss. I also had a good time Christmas Day as I actually felt part of the family for the first time in many years. The end of December was also a good time for me, I spent it with Liz and her family and really felt accepted.

Anyway, back to my review of the year.

January
January was an interesting month, fisrt it saw the blossoming of a new friendship, one that would lead to something quite special – although i didn’t know that at the time of course. This month saw the final plans for the new academic year’s housing plans and all the arguments that surrounded that decision. This is probably the time that I cemented my friendship with a number of people whom I now consider my closest allies.

January’s exam period was hard for me, not just for the obvious reasons, but because it saw the dawning in my mind that I had lost my passion in Materials Engineering, that the course was no longer the inspiration I required. I began to toy with the idea of leaving university, or at least changing course.

February
I don’t remember much of February apart from starting at McDonald’s and buying a new car. I also went to Langdale in the Lake District with my mum.

March
March was an interesting month, I saw Barenaked Ladies in concert in Leeds which was amazing, visited Sarann in the Lakes and most importantly I started this blog.

April
Now here is the definition of a rollercoaster ride. I reached some of the lowest points of my life but also touched some of the highest highs. I ran Rationalist Week, spent a week in a self-destructive spiral of drinking, partying and depression, I met a girl and fell in love.

May
May was a busy month. Liz and my relationship went from strength to strength, went to see Soweto Kinch and The Who live in concert and Blackpool won in the League One play-offs and got themselves promoted to the Championship.

June
Festivals were the order of the day/month for June. I went to Sunrise and Farmyard Party to work in a chip van with Sarann. I had a great time but it meant not seeing Liz for a lot of the month – the first real test for our relationship. I think we ended up stronger than ever! Chris ended up in hospital with a serious bout of appendicitis and I spent a lot of time helping Matt sort out his car.

July
July was quite boring compared to the surrounding months.I went to Workhouse in Wales, had minor computing issues and moved in with my new housemates – Sarann, Michelle, B and Chris.

August
Always a quiet month, with uni still a month away and the excitement of breaking up long since faded away. I spent most of the month taking stock and seeing what was what in my life. I did go to Solfest, however, which was definitely a personal highlight of the year!

September
I made only seven blog posts in September, which gives a good indication of how little I did. I did start a new course at university though and turned twenty-three – which also explains the lack of blogging! The combination of Fresher’s week and birthday celebrations will do that to a man.

October
A difficult month for me. A lot of things happened in my private life that left me somewhat adrift. I did get a new computer though, which is always nice!

November
November saw things pick up a bit with the A-Soc London trip, Atheist Week and the discovery of the Lancashire Hotpots! London was worth all the effort that I put into it, it turned out better than anyone had predicted and nothing really bad happened. Liz and I went from strength to strength and I even managed to find time to do some uni work!

December
A month of WoW and family. Not a lot to report on really, except what is already included at the top of this post. It was a good festive period all in all. I think it set me up for 2008 quite nicely.

Well it is that time of year again, the exam period has officially begun!

I have been quite good this year, got most of my coursework out of the way before going home for Christmas so I could take a good week off for the festivities and then got stuck into full time revision on the 2nd January. It means I have had a solid week of 9 – 5 preparing for the two exams that matter and the one that I am actually looking forward to. I have a philosophy exam and a history and philosophy of science exam on Wednesday and Thursday respectively and then my CR11 mock on the following Wednesday.

I think I’m pretty much ready, whcih is the first time I have said that since my GCSE’s (which weren’t exactly taxing..). To be fair, though, only the two philosophy exams actually matter and I don’t need to pass either save for pride and bragging rights.

This time of year always makes me reflect on the sacrifices we make for exams. I have a couple of friends who should be celebrating their birthdays in the coming weeks and I am fairly sure they haven’t managed it effectively for the past ten years! I have been spending little or no time with Liz and even have pared down the amount of time I am spending on the phone or the internet with her.

An interesting time of year, one where you realise just how much assessment we go through these days. I say bring back the days of three years work and a single session of finals!

Well I am nearing the end of my Fresher’s week as part of the Department of Joint Honours Science. I think i will classify the week as a success. I have met some new people, i have attended all the appropriate lectures, labs and meetings and am now all set for the start proper of my new degree programme. I am particularly looking forward to my computing modules as I feel that these will be the testing yet enjoyable challenge that I require to thrive. I am enjoying getting into linux and exploring all the nooks and crannies within it. The induction programme being run by the SoC has been helpful if somewhat tedious as it focussed on writing a quick HTML file and learning some of the basics of the command line terminal – something I consider myself a fairly confident user of. I am by no means an expert – Kieran will shoot me down for saying anything remotely like that, but I can manage, run, create and delete files and directories etc and write fairly strict html as long as it’s not too flashy. It is the programming side of the course that I am most apprehensive about, but I feel that the challenge is something I need. Roll on Java!

CompSoc and A-Soc Fresher events are getting into full swing and I am really starting to get my teeth into the roles. I am looking forward to the next few weeks despite the fact that the workload is daunting to say the least.

The new semester at university starts in less than two weeks. Well, it’s two weeks until Fresher’s Week begins anyway. Usually that wouldn’t be too significant as it is many years since I was a fresher, but this year I am helping A-Soc recruit new members at the Fresher’s Fair and generally make sure that A-Soc is a massive success this year whilst I am secretary. This means a lot of work! The past few weeks have basically seen me sat at my computer sending emails left, right and centre to sort out events, book speakers and generally make sure everything is set up for the new year. I have also been busy beavering away on speeches and presentations for the first few meetings of A-Soc seeing as we have a lot of debates planned. I am going to take this opportunity to plug A-Soc, so if you are in the Leeds area and are a student (or even if you are not) then get in touch with us at Atheist Society. Membership is £5 for the year and that gets you voting rights, access to our library of books and DVDs as well as a regular newsletter and invitations to all our events. Check out the website for listings.

New semester means new course for me. Having successfully changed from a MEng in Materials Science and Engineering to a Joint Honours BSc in Computing and Management I am really looking forward to getting my studies back on track. I could write a whole essay on the reasons behind that decision, but I think I will save it for a blog post sometime in the future. New semester also means new job. I somehow have to pay for my course and living expenses and at the moment there are a few options out there. Firstly, I have recently had some good news from McDonald’s which means that I can return there if I so wish, there is also a possibility of an opening with William Hill (the bookies) which looks like a good opportunity – mainly beacuse it is better pay and nicer hours!

All of this means that I am going to have less spare time to spend with friends and what’s more, I will probably end up seeing Liz a lot less than is ideal. Compounding this is the fact that Liz has applied for a new job (interview on Wednesday) which means she will be working full time hours and therefore be free a lot less. Normally, I would say that this sucks but I think our relationship is at the stage where we can understand and accept the commitments we both have and work our relationship around them. I am really looking forward to the next few months, they are probably going to decide the next few years of my life!

Twenty English pounds to be exact, which is more like forty US dollars, but then the saying is definitely less pithy when written “Another day, another forty US dollars”.

Anyway, I digress.

Yes, so I finished my last session helping the strive for neuro-physiological and -psychological advancement which earned me a nice crisp (well it’s actually well worn to be honest, but you get the picture) twenty pound note. Which is nice. Couple that together with the £35 my Dad has just put into my bank account I am veritably rich. I say rich, but it basically means I can afford to go home to scrounge in person from my Mum rather than on the telephone. I always find scrounging always benefits from the personal touch

I really wish I wasn’t in this position, I would love to be able to stand on my own two feet financially. However, bad decisions pre-university have cost me my ability to be fiscally independent. Even worse is the fact that my funding for next year is still up in the air, I have yet to hear whether I am going to receive any student support for the next year or so – really leaves me in a quandry as I cannot afford to fund my own learning and I am not really in a position to leave university all together. I am sure things will sort themselves out eventually, it is a government department after all so they are firm believers in “better late than never”.