Norman Ralph

There is a saying that goes “another day, another dollar” and it seems only fitting that I begin my review of 2008 with a quote regarding time and money. 2008 has been a mixed bag of a year, like most years it cam with its ups and downs. The news stories of the year reflect this, with Team GB performing heroics in Beijing and then the economic issues of the last quarter. I hope the rest of this post reflects this theme.

January
Exams were the order of the day at the opening of 2008. never a good start. Although this particular bunch of exams went pretty well and helped set up a relatively successful second semester on my new course. A-Soc kicked off its second full year with its first event of 2008, the low turnout not indicating the successes to follow. January aslo saw Chris finally lose his virginity at Wendy House.

February
Darwin Day 2008 was supposed to be the highlight of February, but it got somewhat overshadowed by Sarann’s secret affair! The planning of Rationalist Week seems to get earlier and earlier and we officially kicked off the organisation of A-Soc’s flagship event on the 13th February. Somehow, I also managed to fit in a well deserved few days away with Liz in the lake District – you cannot beat walking, relaxing and real ale by the fire to wash away exam and coursework stress! The Union’s political machinations also culminated with me being dubbed “Norman the No! Man” due to my inability to sit back and watch debates go undebated, regardless of my actual view points.

March
One of the coups of 2008 came when Si finally succumbed to peer pressure and started blogging! In another blow for democracy, my decision to stand for Faith and Culture rep for the Union was rebuked as I was effectively blocked from standing (or voting). My main memory of March, however, was the setting up of Secular Portal, which would ultimately turn into my current project, the AHS.

April
Rationalist Week 2008. Need I say much more about how awesome April was? Except for everything that went wrong it was a great success! The icing on the cake was being elected president of A-Soc at the AGM. We managed to recruit a decent sized committee and really was the icing on the cake as far as the success of A-Soc in the first half of 2008.

May
it seems I didn’t blog about very much in May. Probably down to the exams etc that I was taking, along with recovering from April!

June
I started work with O2 at the beginning of June and spent most of the month training for my new role. I did manage to squeeze in a few social activities too, brewing my own ale for the SoC graduation reception was a particular highlight. I also went to see Avril Lavigne perform in Manchester, which was also pretty awesome. I also moved out of the house I had lived in for three of my four years at university.

July
Work and parties seemed to be the order of the day this month in 2008.

I’m going to stop splitting up the months for the second half of 2008 as I didn’t actually spend much time bloggine. Really, I worked near enough all summer – managing a day off for V Festival – either at O2 or putting together Intro Week for A-Soc.

Part of me thinks I should write here what happened in the couple of months I wasn’t blogging, but I feel that it wouldn’t do it justice. It wasn’t until December that I began blogging again, inspired by the relaunch of the site and our end of year festivities.

Hopefully, I will continue this new found blogging activity into 2009.

My marks out of ten for 2008 as a year, a good 7.

It occurred to me not so long ago that i hadn’t been on an actual real-life holiday since June 2005 when I went to Spain for a week. This is simply bad form.

This revelation led me to organise a short break to the Lake District with Liz last week. We were away for a week and it was a week well spent. I realise that I should have been at lectures and doing coursework but it is a sacrifice I would not hesitate to make again!

We had planned to be in the Lakes all week, but due to an issue with the kennels Liz and I had to stay in Kirkham for a couple of days to dog sit for my mother. At first I thought it would be a bit of a waste of time but it was actually quite relaxing to just chill out at home for a bit, especially since my mum had redecorated my room with new bed, new carpets etc etc.

We headed up to the Lakes on the Wendesday and spent a glorious few days basking in the miserable northern weather I should point out here that I love the Lake District, especially in Winter. I like the rain and wind and snow. We did some walking, some shopping and some general mooching – not to mention Liz’s FOUR jacuzzi baths!!

We were staying at the Langdale Estate ina lovely little chalet. I really love that part of the Lakes with its accessible walking and lively (relatively…) atmosphere.

More importantly I got new walking boots!

The first day back to school or work, or in my case university, after a holiday or time-off is always an experience, Today was no different. My first day back to uni after the Christmas vacation went relatively smoothly. Three lectures (well two down one to go) soread out over eight hours, always a nightmare, and a theme throughout this semester’s timetable. I have few consecutive lectures which means that I am stuck in uni all day every day!

Started a new course in philosophy of religion and resumed courses in programming and economics. Same old same old mainly. Philosophy of religion looks like it might be interesting but I think I might get annoyed with the rather large Christian contingent that makes up my tutor group!

Got some feedback on my CR11 mock today, which looks promising. Got an ok 2:1, not as high as I had hoped but pretty good seeing as I struggled with one of the large questions on the paper. Marks for the coursework will be out soon too. It is always exciting to get marks back, unless you know you have done badly!

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.

Today is the first day in a while where I don’t know what to do with myself. I don’t have a job to dread (I finished my work up at the university yesterday), I have no really pressing things on my to-do list and I don’t have any uni work or anything piled up. I am at a loose end. There is lots for me to do though, the house needs a really good tidying up, my network cable needs laying (I did the rest of the house last weekend, but managed to forget my room!!) and I need to start downloading all the updates to WoW following my re-install of Windows. Somehow, these things are not exciting me as much as they possibly should. What I really want to do is go into town and buy some Magic: The Gathering trading cards.

I was introduced to this game recently by Si and MC and it rocks! It’s basically a trading card game based around magic. Most of my readers will have heard of it and some will probably play it, but it’s new to me so I am still rather obsessed about it. What is it with fads?

Anyway, today is the first real day of my summer and it’s raining. If I believed in omens I would probably take this as a sign that my summer was going to suck! I mean everything and everyone has gone crazy recently. The last two weeks has stretched Kara, Si and my sanity to breaking point. George is really struggling with some personal issues and Sarann is in love again B and MC seem to be the only people on a level at the moment, though being loud about it!

Oh well, here is to a very relaxing and recharging summer. I need it.

After several weeks offline due to holiday, work, festivals and moving house (well room….) I am finally back online, although only temporarily at the moment. I am currently using a makeshift internet connection until our house network is up and running, so I cannot vouch for the regularity of my posts for the foreseeable future. I will do my best to ensure that I try to keep you all up to date on the comings and goings currently making my life about as hectic as it has been in several years!

Firslty, I am currently working ten to eleven hour days for a framing company selling certificate frames to graduates at Leeds University. Good money but hard work! I had to pass up on the last two festivals I was supposed to be working due to a) a better offer and b) the feeling that the work I was doing was going very unappreciated to say the least!

Basically, my life is good. I have a fantastic girlfriend, amazing housemates, quality friends and a bank balance in the black! Not a lot else for me to say at the moment. I am sure that my future posts will include some of the details I have skipped over, but then again they might not. Requests on a postcard please.

Liz and I headed across to the BBQ and party hosted by Matt, Kat, Kieran, Heather and her housemates on Saturday afternoon. A few getting ready problems had caused us to runa little late, we didn’t leave my house until gone 3.30pm. We were some of the first to arrive, even though it started at three. With chairs and tables set out, Kieran’s front garden is actually a really nice place to hold a party, it is roomier than it looks and with the front fence, encolsed enough to feel like a garden party rather than a park party.

Kieran had taken the liberty of ordering a keg of ale from Elland Brewery, a genius idea! Over the night we sank over 60 pints from it! Along with the copious wine, the BBQ food and the cheese there was much revelry and fun. The musical choices were excellent and the party ran really well. It started to die out in the early hours, but a few harcore party animals lasted until gone 3am! I stumbled home with Claire about 3.30am after polishing off my third bottle of wine, which had been preceded by a good bash at the ale (about ten pints if my memory serves me correctly) so I was rather drunk.

Unfortunately, the night was not a total high point. I had had to drop Liz off at the station so she could get to work. It was the worst goodbye we have ever had to say. I am not going to say much more about it as it was a very personal experience. In case you are reading Liz, I miss you and I hate not being with you!

Thanks Kieran et al for a quality party, it really was a great evening for the most part. Hope we can have a repeat in the future.

I thought it would be best if I let everyone know what I was up to this summer as blog posts are going to be a bit thin on the ground. I am going to be working a number of the smaller festivals this summer with Sarann. We are working at five and paying guests at another. This all means that we will be away for the best part of seven weeks including all the travelling time. I will keep you updated on our progress as best I can.

Sunrise – 31/05 to 03/06, Somerset

Farmyard – 15/06 to 17/06, North Yorkshire

Workhouse – 29/06 to 01/07, North Wales

Buddhafield – 11/07 to 15/07, Somerset

??? – 20/07 to 22/07, ???

Solfest – 24/08 to 26/08, Cumbria

As you can see a massively varied group of festivals, in terms of music, venue and location. I am really looking forward to getting to as much of each of the festivals as possible. I am working for a guy named Rakesh in his catering van. I am doing two four hour shifts everyday of the festivals, so it all depends on timing.

The only diasdavantage of the whole thing is that I don’t get to see Liz all that much, it just happens that the weekends I’m not away are the weekends she is down to work – which sucks!

Saturday was the raison d’etre for me heading home for Easter. With Jon back from the Falklands and Dom and Beki up from London it was the ideal opportunity to relive some our youth.

Lunchtime saw us shake off our hangovers from the night before and fire up the barbeque for some lunch. The four of us were joined by Izzy and Nikki for some light refreshments and a few sausages and burgers. It was a glorious afternoon, good food and drink coupled with some lively company. We tend to get together a few times a year, but these BBQ’s tend to be well worth the effort. As the afternoon rolled on we headed our separate ways to get changed etc ready for our big night out.

I used the chance to go into Preston and pick up a new car stereo, one with a CD player and RDS – review to follow. Ended up at Izzy’s getting some CDs burned and came up with a plan to head over to Chester Zoo on Monday. Having got changed and ready I drove back over to Dom’s for the pre-party.

Joining Jon, Dom, Bekki and myself for this night of fun were Ash (Dom’s brother) and his girlfriend Jemma, Anja and Kirsty. We started off at Dom’s with a few drinks. The few drinks turned into many drinks and by 9pm we were getting ready to go into Blackpool. We have not been out in Blackpool as a crowd since we were at sixth form so we were all up for this night.

The taxi dropped us off at Schofield’s and we set off with the night. Drinks have definitely gone up since last I was in Blackpool – £20 for a round of 6 drinks! The tequilas were cheap though, so I got a round of them in! Walked up to Syndicate at about 11ish and after paying the princely sum of £10 to get in, we set about partying.

The rest of the night was somewhat of a blur, Jon and I were on the quadruple vodka and redbull’s! The music was funky house and the lights flashed a lot. It was a really good night, clubbing the likes of which I have not experienced for a good 5 years! Leeds has some good clubs but it just cannot compete with the size and atmospehere of the Syndicate. It may have been one of those nights that the fact I was with excellent company mean more than that quality of the environment, but still an excellent night.

Taxi and a kebab at 3am and we were back to Dom’s for some post-party drinks. Next thing I remember was waking up in Dom’s spare room. We fired the BBQ back up and had ourselves some BBQ bacon butties!

We have now had a few days on sunshine and relative warmth, can we suggest that Summer is coming? I hope so. It has struck me the last few days that without the massive pressures of coursework deadlines, the wind and rain and the general apathy that grows when you are poor and tired that the group of friends I spend time with are infinitely more relaxed, more outgoing and generally better to spend time with.

I have really anjoyed spending time with people that last week or so. I have written on here about really starting to get to know Kat, then visiting Sarann up in Cumbria, now I think I have found some more common ground with Matt. Sarann is being her usual lovely self and Michelle and I are getting on better than ever. The more time I spend with George the more I like the guy too.

I think that the whole depression/end-of-term-itis of the past few months waas necessary, or at least I am glad it happened. I think eveyone now realised, consciously or not, that we need to make the most of our time when we are feeling up and it.

Roll on the rest of the holidays.