The Story So Far (Part Three, Year 2 & Present)

Back again and ready to get you up to speed in what SHOULD be the final instalment of the story so far. No promises though, I may forget things! This one may be a little longer as I need to explain a few things in a bit more depth so you have an understanding of what happened!

Lovely weather today, sat out in the garden absorbing the rays! Though so is my laptop judging by how it’s starting to burn my thighs!

We left the last entry with the end of first year. So I’ll pick up from there.

In the closing days of Freshers year and throughout the summer of 2008, I finally settled in to a relationship with a girl called Krissy who I’d had my eyes on for a long time. We had briefly got together in the first few months of Freshers year but it didn’t pan out back then.

It’s in this summer that I decided I need to re-evaluate my life a little bit. I was two stone heavier than when I had left Surrey and not only was I looking it, I felt it too.

Being back in Surrey for a month or so was something I could barely bring myself to think about. I decided I would have to keep myself as busy as possible. With this, and with my eagerness to lose some weight, I began running every day. Fortunately I live very close to some lakes which I would run round, as I was far too self conscious and unfit to run in public! Initially I struggled with even the shortest distance. But eventually, slogging away day after day, inspired by an ever-changing playlist, a sprinkling of self-loathing and a burning male pride which drove me to compete with every runner I came across, I started to see changes. I could run further, longer, faster. I felt good and I could see the changes in my physique. By the time it came round to our lad’s tour visiting Magaluf in September 08, I was in the best shape I’d ever been in.

However, with great body comes great responsibility (ha!), and sacrifices were made to ensure I continued to feel good – namely, alcohol. I had barely touched a drink all summer!

I managed to learn how to enjoy myself without the need for alcohol; epitomised by our trip to the binge-drinking capital Magaluf, where I managed to have a great week spent almost entirely sober. One night was spent at BCM with a free bar, yet I only drank water as I was too busy enjoying myself, ‘raving my face off’ to even consider getting drunk. The way I saw it - If I can do it there, I can do it anywhere!

This was a massive change when compared to the vodka-guzzling-money-burning-near-alcoholic I was just months ago and, as to be expected, my friends had a hard time adapting to this new me. Though I assured and showed them on several occasions that I could enjoy myself without alcohol, they were not of the same mind-set. Every time we went out they, perhaps unknowingly, tried to pressure me into drinking - telling me to just have a couple or making jibes about how I’d changed and so on, and this would occur regularly throughout the night. However, I stood firm and didn’t succumb to the barrage. Eventually the tedium of pressure became too much to tolerate and I gradually withdrew myself from this group of ‘friends’; making my excuses as to why I couldn’t attend nights and so forth. They could just not grip the fact that, whilst I was perfectly capable of enjoying myself without drink, I was unable to do so whilst being constantly besieged and belittled with their incessant nagging.

They were quick to place the blame on my relationship with Krissy and decided that I was forsaking the ‘bro’s over hoes’ commandment, and disliked me for it. On top of this, I was living with a couple of them and we had very different opinions on what was a clean or liveable house – this resulted in them complaining about me to the rest of the gang and furthering the divide. A combination of all the mentioned factors sadly, but inevitably, resulted in me being invited out less and less and losing contact with a lot of people who were my closest friends in my first year.

Though we are all friends today and I seem them occasionally, it certainly isn’t and will never be how it was before.

Even now, a couple of years later, I still do not drink very much and still I get badgered about it when I go out. It infuriates me that people are so dependent on alcohol to have a good time and so quick to denounce people who aren’t. I am very partial to a social drink now and then, though even when sober I am able to have a good time, chat, laugh, dance, meet people and be happy without spending money I’ll never see again, doing something I may regret, acting like an idiot, embarrassing myself, being a cocky loud mouth, waking up with a stinking hangover, wasting the day feeling rough, or any other effects that too much alcohol can have on a person!

However, I am TOLERANT of those who wish to do all of the above and happy to spend my evenings with them, so why are they not tolerant of me?

And that is the story of how it came to be that I am no longer who I was in 2007-2008. And although I’m still comfortable with who I am now, often I find myself willing to give anything to return to that year and be who I was then. Not a care in the world – especially ones that couldn’t be covered up with alcohol, friends and pulling.

After Magaluf I returned to university working in the Events Team for Freshers Week 2008. I was setting up the venues and breaking them down after, working the doors, ticketing, flyering, advertising, getting people involved, looking after the artists, sorting out the riders (things the artist’s wanted in their dressing rooms) and so on. It was a hard job with long hours, working late into the night with lots of heavy lifting and grafting to be done but I absolutely thrived on it. I realised I could be happy doing this for a living! 

It was around this time that I also realised that the course I was on (Games Technology) was perhaps not for me. I wasn’t good at it and I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I thought I may have done and thus my motivation to attend the lessons and do well had lapsed. Turns out, making a rushed choice of degree isn’t the wisest thing to do! After several talks with my Mum, who told me to just knuckle down and do it and get a degree even if I didn’t enjoy it, I realised I should give it a good shot. So I attended, I tried, but sadly I just couldn’t do something I didn’t have any passion for.

I attended university for the lifestyle and to escape from home, to become a new person and meet new people and try new things. The degree was secondary in my priorities and it showed.

It’s then that I began looking into changing my course. However, I was told that I had missed the deadline and would need to defer the year and start again as a Fresher in 2009. This meant another three years on top of the two I would have spent at Uni already and it meant not knowing anyone by my final year as everyone else would have graduated. It was a big choice to make and yet somehow I avoided it. I just didn’t make a choice. I continued to be a student but not to study.

I signed up with temp agencies all over Bristol and applied for jobs left, right and centre but in the depths of the recession work was very tight.

I moved into a new house in July 2009 along with my girlfriend Krissy, my great friend Alison and her boyfriend Tom. The house was a vast improvement on last years. Nicer and larger rooms, nicer interior, an amazing garden and a lot cheaper rent!

At this point I had decided I would come to university again in September 2009, and had a possible chance of using the credits from my first year to go straight into second year on a new, relevant course. I was looking to study Media & Cultural Studies with the possibility of doing a joint honours with English or History or something. I spoke with a student advisor about it but was dismayed to hear that as I’d received 2 years finance already, I would have to self finance the first year of my degree. It’s a tactic used by the student’s loan company to see if you are dedicated and committed to attending university. This meant I would have to find over £3000 for the course, and around £4000 in living costs for the year. It was just something that I could not do, no matter how much I wanted it. So disappointingly I was forced out of the university scene. Not obtaining a degree even after getting into student debt remains the biggest regret of my life to date, though coming to Bristol would probably be the best choice I ever made. Conflicting, really.

HOWEVER, on a brighter note, with our success at last year’s Freshers, we were invited back to work Freshers Week 2009 and this time I was taking on a lot more responsibility and more organisational role. I had become one of four senior Event Operators. More on that in a future blog!

Still no jobs on the horizon, my Mum told me I would have to move home but having made a commitment to the house and knowing I would go insane back home, I argued that I needed to stay. However some jobs came up; crappy, meaningless mind-numbing jobs which made me want to drive my face into the desk until I bludgeoned myself to death – but, they paid the bills and put food in the cupboards. But they often only lasted a couple of weeks and then I’d go a month or so without anything on the horizon. I applied for hundreds and hundreds of jobs. Over-qualified, under-qualified and everything in between.

I done week’s here or there, but in January landed a job working in a College Library which lasted a few months. But, as with all temp jobs it came to an end, and here I am again, in Limbo, applying for jobs and hearing nothing back.

And now you have arrived at my present. Feeling like Bristol has lost its charm for me. But, alas, circumstances change and people change and I’ve been in the thick of that for the last few years.
 

The next post will bring you details of the crossroads I’m at and what the future could hold for me. 

I’ll also have posts about my fitness/running and about my events work in a little more detail.

Thanks for reading!

G

The Story So Far (Part Two - UWE Freshers 07)

I am back, as promised, to deliver the rest of ‘the story so far’ to bring y’all up to speed!

Apologies but this is a fairly long-winded post! I've had to sift through and condense a years worth of memories! It may not be too interesting to read but it brought me a GREAT deal of joy writing it. You are about to hear about the best year of my life so far, though not in the greatest detail ever!

Right yes, university and Bristol!

I was scared of moving miles and miles away without knowing anyone. I had seen that a friend of mine had joined a Facebook group for Freshers at her university. What a great idea, I mused! I had a wee search to see if there was anything similar for UWE Freshers and alas there was not. So, I threw caution to the wind and set my own one up. UWE Freshers 07 was born. It started pretty slow, but some of the first few people who joined would become my closest friends in the first year. It grew and grew and grew, and eventually the group maxed out at over 6,000 (SIX THOUSAND!) people; most of who knew my name. I was on the way to becoming a celebrity within the university scene.

Out of UWE Freshers 07 sprung separate groups for various courses, faculties, club nights, events, societies, sports and accommodation. My group became a portal to all those other groups (a lot of them started and maintained by myself anyway!). It became a wealth of information for anyone who wished to attend the university! I provided links about enrolment, registration, Freshers Week and more.

People would post on their relevant accommodation group providing their name, flat and room number and ask if anyone lived with or near them. I noticed this and compiled a list of people and where they were staying - so when people came on to the groups they could locate their flat and get in touch with their flatmates on Facebook before moving in! This was then recreated in the other accommodation groups which other people had taken the initiative to start. It felt good to be easing the ‘big move’ by providing Freshers with a way to shake off their nerves by knowing people before they moved in.

The culmination of all the networking came on my first day down in Bristol. I had moved in to Brecon Court in the Student Village and set myself up. I checked the web. The group had been used to advertise a party happening that night in one of the flats hosted by people I had been speaking to on Facebook and MSN for a few months. I headed straight over and shed-loads of people who I’d spoken to only electronically until now. People recognised and knew me and I would be clueless as to who they were! It was surreal but it was sensational. Drink flowed freely and a good time was had by all (other than a couple of people who couldn’t handle the new university drinking lifestyle and got paralytic... one girl even had a fit!). Music blared, people danced, everyone was introducing everyone to everyone with replies of “ooh yeah, we’ve spoken on Facebook!” In the space of mere hours, friendships had been formed which felt like they were years old. It was this very flat I would spend almost every waking hour in – the wonder and legend that was Brecon 103.

Fresher’s Week came around and I felt like a king! In clubs, bars, on the street or at university people would approach me and say ‘oh my god you’re George!’ or variations on that! People would insist on buying me drinks – many thanks if you were one of them! Complete strangers would invite me out as nonchalantly as if we’d known each other for years. I genuinely felt on several occasions that people felt they knew me before they’d even met me! And in the most bizarre occasions people would ask to have a photo taken with me as if I was Sean-fucking-Connery or something! It was surreal but, of course, I absolutely loved it. It was amazing! I was in my element. I was no longer the shy, unhappy guy with no self confidence I was in Surrey.

Almost daily I would receive messages from clubs, promoters, Student Union staff, University staff and others asking to affiliate with the group or advertise within it. But for the time being, I felt it best if I maintained control of it. However, the ‘contacts’ I made through this and the perks I received would prove to be a bountiful beyond my wildest dreams!

The idea of a group for Freshers had never occurred to the UWE Students’ Union before I created the UWE Freshers 07 group. It was the predecessor to hundreds of new groups and event pages for every aspect of university life. And eventually I teamed up with the Student Union and allowed them access to the page to promote Union events, update users with the latest News and provide them with essential information to help them settle in.

It wasn’t long before I was on the union payroll, doing a couple of hours a week updating the Union website with all the latest news and maintaining and updating the Freshers group. I was being paid for this now as well, could it get any better?

Yes!

I began advertising for a club night at Syndicate called Vodbull, hosted on a Monday night where Vodka Redbull was just £1.50. All this entailed was sending a message out to the group telling them what the night was about, or perhaps inviting the members of the group to the Vodbull event on Facebook. Occasionally I would hand out leaflets or welcome people on the door. Sometimes I would help prepare the venue for the event. Once I even recruited some of my friends and we spent the night painting people with UV paint or spraying them with UV paint from a water pistol. Girls would come up and ask us to hand print or paint their... body parts. Life was good!

As if that couldn’t get any better, for this ‘work’ I was doing, I was also entitled to VIP access for me and 10 of my friends on a weekly basis. Jumping the queues, access to a VIP area to avoid queues at bars – sweet. I was also given free shot and drinks vouchers by the PAD and once me and my friends were sufficiently ‘trollied’, we would use the remainder of the vouchers and the VIP access to chat up women.

Eventually the club night came to an end and moved on, though I had perks elsewhere! Through working at the SU I had made a lot of friends in reasonably high places and a lot of friends who worked behind the bar – meaning no more queuing for me! I was friendly with the SU president who would eventually come to help me win a battle with the crappy Estate Agent we were renting from in our second year too! I was also friendly with the events workers and was part of a team suggesting new nights and new themes and the like. I was also close with the fellow, my good friend Alex, who would become the Freshers Event organiser for 2008.

I had gained over 2 stone, mostly from the sheer volume of alcohol consumed. I spent over £1250 (my entire Student Overdraft) in 3 months on going out, much to my mothers dismay! I was drunk, no word of a lie, almost solidly for 5 months between September and February – with a brief break for exams in January. Seriously, I was out 5-6 times a week almost every week. Even after February it only decreased to 3-4 times a week, though perhaps we drank more at the flats than out in the town due to the ever-increasing lack of funds! I was frequently drunk during the day. Me and Ross would get bored, go to the Sainsbury’s down the road for something completely unexciting like bread or toilet paper and end up leaving with some booze and some chicken wings. We would drink up on the walk back, and show up at 103 in the middle of the day completely off our tits. That was the life.

There is so much more I could tell you about Freshers year (girls and more girls, relationships, break ups, make ups, troubles with the ex, £10 all you can drink, a few scraps, even more parties, drugs, summer BBQ’s, Wii Bowling drinking games, Bastard 8’s, the kebab guys, Christmas dinners, waking up in my own sick, dirty pints, awesome security guards, finding a Masterkey for the accommodation, the leaving party, so many more times I’ll never forget...) but I think I’ve bored you enough, for now! I could write a novel on this!

2007-2008 was the best year of my life to date. I miss it so much that it hurts and would give anything to be back there once again. It changed me in so many ways and for the first time in my life I was comfortable with who I was. I made so, so many friends and though I may have grown distant from them since, I will never forget them. 

I’ll bring this to an end here. Sorry it’s long! The next edition will be about my second year and events work, but that will be far shorter than this one has been. After that we’re pretty much up to date with where I am now.

Brecon ‘til I die!

G

The Story So Far (Part One)...

As good a time as any to post my first proper entry, I think! And what better place to begin than with the beginning - to summarise where I am right now and how I got here.

A black sheep through and through, I never felt I achieved the same relationship with my family that they achieved with each other; to me, they were like members of an elite club that I couldn’t gain access to.

Though fear not, I have grown closer to them now! Rather ironically, in the last few years since I’ve moved away, I feel more at home with them when I am there. Perhaps absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder? Though, that said, I often have a nagging suspicion that I’m adopted, made worse by my whole family telling me so - regularly!

I stumbled through my formative years with the distinct lack of a male role model; to say me and my dad didn’t see eye to eye would be an understatement - but that’s another tale for another day. Sadly my brother, 16 years my elder and the closest thing to a role model I had, had already moved abroad to Ireland, married an Irish gal and settled down by the time I had even begun my teenage years. I have been shaped into who I am today by circumstance, major events, family (my Ma in particular) and friends. I applaud and owe my Mum so much for shaping me into who I am today. Although we weren’t very close back then, she is the strongest person I know and has done a great job of raising all of us kids into good people!

With that in mind you will be shocked to hear that I do possess some personality flaws! Flaws such as a lack of confidence and an underlying paranoia, thrust upon me by more-than-one deceitful girlfriend. I’ve seen and known people to do some truly terrible things to friends, family and partners they are meant to care about. I’ve seen people completely take advantage of trust which is given to them. I’ve seen cases of people showing a complete disregard for the well-being of others, whether they know them or not. I once saw an elderly lady fall at the bottom of an escalator in a tube station in London, only to be stepped over and ignored by everyone who followed, showing complete indifference to this poor woman who was clearly in need of a helping hand. That image has stuck with me for years and is one of the reasons I don’t like to visit London town. Every day produces a new example of how selfish, dishonest and outright ruthless human beings can be. I do not believe my distrust to be unfounded; for me, it is easy to believe that everyone is capable of deviousness.

But, that’s it! No other bad flaws! Haha, I’m kidding. Of course there’s more but nothing major and nothing out of the ordinary. But I’m not going to sit here and list them all, am I?  

The reason I mention all the above is that it’s all relevant to the bigger picture of who I am and where I am in my life right now.

The subject of girlfriends brings me nicely to my decision to move over 130 miles away! Rather simply, my then girlfriend was applying for university, a concept I had never even considered really. I therefore looked into university, with not even an inkling of what I wanted to study or where I wanted to go. I eventually decided that because I like playing computer games I would like to study to be a games designer (how wrong was I?). With the course chosen, I set about looking for parts of the country to move to! I immediately ruled out the north with the mental image of freezing cold weather and lots of farmland! I had a friend who had recently visited Bristol and declared it a ‘great night out’ and a ‘wicked city’, so I looked into the universities there. I discovered that UWE had a new state of the art Games Technology course which was only brought into being that same year. Not to mention brand new student accommodation on campus opened that same year too! The modernsist in me was delighted. New course? New accommodation? New me? New start? It all fell into place. It just so happened a friend of mine was also looking at UWE and was driving down for the open day. I was invited along and after a tour of the facilities and a lecture on my course content, I was sold. Bristol wouldn’t know what hit it!

I will continue with this and bring you the next instalment very soon – I need to get to bed!

A Misadventurist's Introduction & Welcome.

Hello to whomever may read this!

This is my first post on here and my first real attempt at blogging. (I had set a blog up once before but didn't use it and forgot the address for it - thus it has fallen into obscurity, never to be seen again!)

The blog title says it all really!

misadventure [ˌmɪsədˈvɛntʃə]

n

1. an unlucky event; misfortune

2. (Law) Law accidental death not due to crime or negligence

Let's hope the latter of the two isn't a regular occurrence in this blog, though! But yes, misadventure! The story of my life so far! Few things seem to pan out how I think they will and a lot of things end in misfortune; sometimes with comic results, sometimes with doom and gloom, and other times for the better!

I will therefore allow this blog to follow me through my journey as I progress into what you can only described as 'the real world', as I begin to think about the future and what I want from my time in this life.

Though I am sure I may not use this too regularly for the time being, I intend to use it, eventually, as a medium to convey my adventures (or misadventures!) when they arise. For example, keeping people back home up to date with regard to my travelling in the Summer of '10, career choices, girlfriends, and anything and everything else I may choose to channel my efforts in to.

I am currently writing this to absolutely no-one, so until I obtain some readers, I shall call it a day here!

Catch up with you soon, currently imaginary friends!

G