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.

As I am sure many of you are aware my life has been in somewhat of a state of flux recently. New housemates, new girlfriend, new friends, new job, new starts, new found enjoyment of life etc etc all add up to something resembling upheaval in my life. I am not generally one for getting too flustered by most things, in fact it is often pointed out as a personality flaw that I tend to not to publicly experience highs or lows.

Well, I thought I would take a few moments and take some sort of stock of where I am at the moment and what I think of a few things.

I will start with my domestic situation. It has come to my attention that I tend to play quite a downer on my family, particularly my parents and that is something that does not accurately reflect my current relationships with both my mother and my father. My mother is a proverbial god send. I do not know where I would be without her. We do not agree on everything and we have been known to have some rather passionate disagreements over the years. I will say though, that we are probably as close now as we have ever been. She is my confidant and the one I seem to turn too when things are hard. I realise that she does tend to only see the worse side of me when we get together, but then I do seem to only turn to her when I am at a loss and cannot fathom any other solution. Anyway, thanks for everything you have done and probably will do over the next few years!

My father is a different matter altogether. He has been absent since I was very young and hence I have never really experienced a father-son relationship with him. To be honest, it was never something that I felt was necessary, not until I moved to Leeds and started to look at my life and try to make some head or tails of it. Since then it has been something of a rollercoaster, with a lot of downs along the way. At the moment though, there seems to be something amiss as we have barely spoken (through no lack of trying on my part) for a a few months now.

Now, onto the good news. Liz and I are flourishing. I think it is safe to say that the initial honey moon period is probably over and yet we are still as strong as ever. Which is always a good sign. I know I have a habit of jumping into these things with both feet, but I feel that if something is worth doing and caring about then its worth doing properly and with all of your heart. It brings to mind one of my favoured quotations, although the name of the quoter escapes me temporarily….”Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.” It always manages to instill me with a sense of duty and inspiration to go out and achieve whatever it is I am aiming for. In summary then, I am in love.

The current friends situation is also quite rosy with no great fallings out going on or any on the horizon. I am probably not paying enough attention to all my friends across the country, but I think I am doing OK. As mentioned previously, I have found a new level of relationship with many of the people I know. Namely, Si and George. Mine and Sarann’s relationship also seems to be going from strength to strength at the moment. I am really loving living with her. I think the closeness of our working relationship over the Summer has really helped and done a massive favour for our personal relationship. I now consider her one of my very closest friends. Otherwise a lot of my friendships are as steady as they ever were and I am still loving my new housemates! It’s turning out to be a lot of fun!

I have been reading a lot this Summer, mainly around atheism and related topics. I am hoping to really get my teeth into running A-Soc this year as Secretary. I’m looking forward to taking a more active role within union politics too. I have a lot to say about a lot of things, not just religion based, although that is my area of knowledge at the moment, and I definitely feel I have a future in politics. I realise that my relatively right wing attitude can often be construed as unhelpful and unproductive in a student environment, but I feel that a lot of my ideas are fairly central and often liberal in nature. I am very much a centre-right thinking person. With traditionally conservative views on crime, punishment, immigration and capitalism. Although my views on families, homosexuality and religion are particularly liberal in stance.

In other news, I am looking forward to Solfest in August, going to prague with Liz for my birthday and the start of the new term. I can’t wait to see how my rediscovered zest for life will be transferred to my work and study environment.

Roll on the rest of Summer!

I have mentioned my friend Liz a few times recently and i am going to mention her a whole lot more. As I have said, she came to visit on Monday and we talked. A lot. This talk led to me realising that there was more to our relationship than first met the eye. At least the potential for more was there.

Over the past few days we have talked lots about what was said and whether we really meant it. I think things have come to a head now as I think I have fallen in love with her, well as much as you can at such early stages of a relationship. One of the qustions she asked me on Monday was whether I would ever marry her. Normally I do not encourage marriage, my own parents got divorced when I was young and I have never really been enamoured by the whole idea. But, when Liz asked me it didn’t seem like such a ridiculous idea. I actually could see me spending most, if not all, of the rest of my life with her!

Today, she and her boyfriend split up. I think i may have somethign to do with it. I would never have asked her to leave him, thats just not fair, but I am a little bit glad that they did. Although, the whole event has left Liz really upset and I don’t know how to deal with it. I really want to spend as much time as possible with her, I want to see where these feelings will lead. I have got really high hopes for it all. How long do I leave it though? I feel bad diving straight in, but I really do want to be with her.

Liz is coming to Leeds again tomorrow, I can’t wait. I have missed her so much, even though it has been just over 24 hours since I last saw her! That’s how much she means to me. I hope that we will work out, I hope that she will accept me so soon after she has left her boyfriend.

I am really excited at the moment and nobody else is really sharing it with me. I have been burnt before and most people are worried about me jumping in with both feet. I would normally heed their advice and take things cautiously. In this case, however, I think they are wrong. Liz is an amazing person. She makes me smile and laugh and live. I want to live because of her. I owe her my life and so much more. The key thing is, I want to give it to her, I want to share my life with her. I really hope she sees it the same way.

So if you see me in the next few days with a massive, uncharacteristic smile on my face……you know why!