Only me for now

And just like that, I'm now the only person currently living in my student house! Everyone else has either moved out, gone home for the holidays or is at a partner's house. As for me, I remain. With the exception of a few nights at my girlfriend's house, I shall stay at my student house. There is no need for me to go anywhere else for the time being.

It is odd the house being so...inactive. I'm used to hearing my housemates' various movements. It's so silent here!

End-of-term dinner 2017

My girlfriend, her mother and I attended an end-of-term meal yesterday, which was hosted by NTU's society for mature students (my girlfriend's mother is a student and the reason why my girlfriend and I met in the first place). The meetups usually take place at a pub near to the NTU city campus but this particular meet was held in one next to the city centre.

Besides us, there were some 11 other people, with most of them being the usual attendees of the mature student meetups. Not that that's a problem - they're a fun bunch to be around!

The housemate departs

This afternoon, I went to visit a former housemate of mine at her room here in Clifton. This particular housemate is from India and was on a Master's course here at Nottingham Trent University; her graduation was a few days ago and tomorrow, she will be returning to India. She will be travelling to London after midnight and her flight back will be in the early afternoon.

I will really miss this housemate of mine. We took several walks together during the summer and became good friends as a result. We shall still be keeping in contact, however, as there are several venues we have open to us to talk but sadly, it will be some time before we see each other again in person. I wish my friend the best and I look forward to when I next see her!

The joint birthday dinner

This evening, I'll be attending a joint birthday dinner. One of my Access friends had his birthday the other day and mine is also this month; while today is not either of our birthdays, we chose this evening to have the meal.

With us will be at least two other of our friends from Access; I don't know if anyone else is coming but as far as I'm aware, it will just be four Access people in attendance.

The cat and college frames

During my college years and Year 1 of university, I always had out on my window sill or desk my two pictures of the cats my family I had many, many years ago. They were packed away for the three and a half weeks I was at my mother's house and have remained that way until today. There was no symbolic or personal reason for keeping them packed away other than that my room was a mess as a result not tidying it while ill.

Now that I've tidied my room, I've placed the pictures of my cats on my desk. In addition, at the end of Access, one of my friends gave me a framed photo collection of him and me in London with another classmate, the poster of me from college and a picture of me by myself in London. This was one of the kindest gifts I received at college and I really like having it out on display, as the cats are.

The former housemate

During the summer, one of my housemates from last year and I often went for walks together. We'd walk around Clifton or towards the city centre; on at least one occasion we spent three hours out walking.

This particular housemate is from India and she will be returning there in December. Until then, she has been living in Clifton and has been working. This evening, she and I met up to take a short-to-medium length walk around Clifton. Until earlier, it had been a few weeks since we last walked together, as I wasn't going to meet up with her while I was ill. Now that I'm better, we can meet up for walks before she returns to her family in India.

"Stuck in the Boring Car on a Road Trip" - CollegeHumor

This recent CollegeHumor video appealed to me (they usually do but this one more than usual):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9zmxymUntw

I can understand the frustration of being isolated from the main group at a social outing, as it means you lose out on the friendship circle that forms for the duration of the outing and beyond. This has happened to me and in such cases, I've been grouped with either a person or people who didn't want to talk or worse, was grouped with no one at all. This made fitting in with everyone else extremely difficult, at best.

On the other hand, in the case of a road group, being in the "boring" car may not be much a bad thing, for there's less of a chance of the driver being distracted by any funny business"

This particular video is the first in a multi-part series to do with something else but holds its own as a standalone video.

The West Bridgford gig

Near the end of August, I attended a gig at a bar in West Bridgford - alone. Gigs and bars aren't usually my thing...and attending them alone is even less my thing...but I went because a friend of mine from Central, who was a member of staff there and now works at NTU, was hosting a musical event there. She sang two 45-minute sets and I was impressed with her musical talent.

My friend is holding another one of those gigs tonight and I'll be leaving shortly to attend. Unfortunately, I'm going alone again but next time, I want to bring someone else with me.

The long-awaited walk

For the first time in well over two weeks, I walked to the city centre from here in Clifton. A major factor of my recent colds were that they sucked away my energy and along with it, my wanting to exercise.  Finally, this afternoon, I once again had the energy and it was pleasant outside, so being cooped up inside wasn't at all desirable.

In addition to achieving a long walk, when I made it to the city centre I encountered a university friend, who subsequently invited me to a small gathering she was attending with mutual friends. I stayed for an hour and a half before I returned to Clifton. Much as I would have liked to have joined them at a pub quiz they were attending, the fact I am still coughing occasionally was enough to make me decide to leave before they moved to that venue.

The pizza night

The housing manager for my accommodation paid for a pizza night; this is what he did last year except back then it was held in the first week rather than this far into October. Nevertheless, the effect was still the same: We had the chance to meet other residents of the student village and ate pizza for dinner.

In addition to being a pizza night, the event doubled as the occasion where we handed in our inventory forms to the housing manager; however, I did not need to do this because I gave it to him last week when he was here briefly for another reason.

Goose Fair 2017

The Goose Far is an annual fair held here in Nottingham; it is a famous fair and is reported to have started in the 1200s. Before the 1920s the Goose Fair was held in the market square but moved to the Forest Recreation Ground due to reconstruction of the square.

For the first time in the years I've been here, I attended the fair; I went with three of my housemates. While I didn't go on any of the rides, I did purchase a burger and chips from one of the stands. I also encountered a friend from Pre-Access whom I'd not seen since the days of that course. It was a festive atmosphere and I fully intend to attend it again.

Bakewell September 2017

As a treat for both the help she gave me over the past academic year and for her return to Nottingham for the new one, I took a university friend to Bakewell for the day. Said friend is a fellow mature student (significantly older) and half of her course is English, as is half of mine. In addition to having a pleasant walk up there, we had lunch - fish and chips, in fact - as then paid a short visit to Matlock Bath on the way back.

When classes start back next week, we're in a meeting together on Wednesday and in a class together on Friday.

From one to the other

So, this morning I woke up early to move. Boxes needed to be carried, various items packed, belongings carefully placed on the other side - all that good stuff.

But...it wasn't me moving! No, not this time. A university friend was moving to a different part of her building and required some help, for she had only two hours to move all her belongings before
starting work. As I was free this morning, I was more than happy to wake and leave early to help her.

The hard part now for my friend, assuming she hasn't already finished it, is sorting out the mess we left her new place in from hurriedly taking her belongings there. This isn't really a task I can help with since people have their own arrangements when it comes to where they live.

A missed post

After many years of blogging, despite many close shaves in that time, I'd never missed a day of posting. Then came yesterday - the first day since I started on which I did not post. What happened?

Nothing terribly serious. I was with a college friend in the morning and with another college friend in the afternoon. The latter friend is going to Lincoln University this weekend, so to celebrate we went to the new Krispy Kreme donut shop in the Victoria Centre and after that, we went to the pub for drinks. The sugar from the hot chocolate I had in the morning, plus the donuts plus the cocktails combined with my lack of a proper lunch and enough water caused me to have a headache. When I got home, I rested and ate but then went to bed, thus missing making a post.

So, yeah, I was out celebrating and then had a headache. Not too much of a big deal; the headache, which I overcame fairly quickly, was a small nuisance given that I'd had a great day preceding it.

Matlock Bath and Matlock 2017

My best friend and I spent the day in Matlock Bath this afternoon. As she will be heading off to university later this month, I treated her to a trip up there as a gift before she leaves. As per my recent visits to the Peak District, we travelled via Red Arrow to Derby and then the Sixes 6.1 to Matlock Bath.

Once in Matlock Bath we climbed the mountain, via its footpaths, that faces the Heights of Abraham. We did not visit the Heights of Abraham itself because the cable car ride up was too expensive for us; however, the view of the Heights from the opposite side was just as worthy. We walked along the mountaintop paths and exited in the town of Matlock itself before walking back to Matlock Bath.

We had a fantastic day out in the Peak District and I wish my friend the best for her upcoming journey through university.

Mature student meetup, Year 2, meetup 1

Since I've been at university I have been attending the meetups for mature students, despite missing those that occurred before my first term began. I am now fairly well known at them and I enjoy meeting up with fellow mature students.

Today was the first mature student meetup of the 2017-2018 academic year. This meetup was so incoming mature students could make new friends from both existing mature students and others that would be coming to university this year; it was also so the regulars could see each other again. As far I knew, there was only one new student there; however, if there were other new students there I didn't meet them because most of my conversing while there was with her. Not a problem, of course, as it's always good to meet a new person!

Bakewell August 2017

I visited Bakewell for the first time since July of last year except that on this occasion, a friend came with me. I invited said friend to come with me after he'd been fascinated by my first Bakewell trip when I told him about it.

In Bakewell, we walked around, walked to some of the surrounding paths, climbed one of the small mountains and walked by the river for several hours before returning to Derby and then no Nottingham. This was a much better trip to Bakewell compared to my one last year, where I only spent an hour there, of which half of spent finding a toilet and the other half finding how to return to Derby.

Wollaton Park July 2017

My closest college friend and I visited Wollaton Park this afternoon. We arranged to visit there today since the weather forecast predicted a cloudy but otherwise dry day. Ha ha - no.

We were sat on a bench talking when a massive rainstorm was unleashed upon us; the two of us had to hide under a tree to prevent ourselves from being soaked, as I didn't have a raincoat on me and my friend's was barely enough to shield her from the water. It took about fifteen minutes for the rain to pass.

After that, we walked around the pond section of the park before heading to the village area, where we had to hide from a second rainstorm that materialised. We had a longer wait but it wasn't so bad since there was proper shelter rather than a tree, which dripped on us the wetter it became.

This is the first time since 2013 that I've had company while visiting Wollaton Park.

A bowling evening

A couple of days ago, a college friend organised a bowling evening between himself, me and two other friends from Access. The agreed day was today and so we met at the Victoria Centre and walked a short way to the nearby bowling alley.

It was a great evening. We weren't really playing to win - as with any good bowling game, we were there for the fun of it and for the social intereaction. We received an extra game free because our original bowling lane was experiencing problems with the pin cleanup, as did our follow-up second lane; as compensation, we were allowed a change to a third lane and given then given another game.

Another one of those strange coincidences

A few days ago, one of my housemates needed to attend a house viewing; she also wanted someone to accompany her and asked me, so I did. On our way there, I informed her about a few stories involving other friends of mine who had gone into private student housing; one such story was how a fellow mature student had been cheated out of his money by a conniving housemate.

When my housemate and I made it to the housing, we met someone who worked for and represented the landlord. As we entered the house, the man mentioned the name of a tenant who was staying there; this tenant had the same name as the aforementioned mature student and...as if on cue, it was the same mature student! I couldn't believe it! Not only had my housemate picked somewhere that was home to someone I knew but also of someone I'd been talking about 15 minutes prior. He even recounted the same story I told.

It's hilarious - as well as somewhat disconcerting - moments like this that make life all the more interesting!