End of the year and decade!
Diary: Month of December: Alpharus, Games, Clubbing and films :o)
I finished reading Abnett's 'Alpharus'. As ever, nice setting, nicely fleshed out characters but the ending felt a bit rushed. On the plus side, it did feel rushed but not silly (which Abnett's book endings could often be accused of). Without being spoilery, it's a pre-heresy book about one of the Space Marine legions ('Space Marine' always seems an silly name for a military force where travel through space is ordinary, they should have just been called 'Imperial Marines'). If I'd thought about it then I could probably have guessed the outcome more or less but I'd forgotten whether they were listed as traitors or loyalists in the Horus Heresy, so bit of a surprise ending (although still rushed...)
The rushed/silly endings do spoil things a bit but it could still be worse. Richard William's 'Relentless' has very good pacing and I liked how the workings of an Imperial Navy warship was fleshed out and made interesting but the characters were very shallow and very much exactly what you expected them to be and the plot line was ultimately very predictable, so perhaps there are more important things than how a book ends.
During the first week of the month, I decided on a change and went to Terminate @ Dungeon on Thursday. A girl (Jaz), that I'd met the week before, and some of her friends were going and had suggested it and the facebook event suggested that a few other of my friends would be there so I decided to give it a shot despite the previous nights I'd been being deathly quiet. Turned out to be really good; it was still quiet but with enough distinct groups that I recognised and knew that I could wander around and say hello to people. Previously it had been more a case of 'here's the six people I know, there's the three people I don't and there's a couple more perhaps on the dancefloor' :oP
Industrial Fallout on Saturday was very good, as expected. Was brilliant to see those friends who normally don't bother with coming out to make the effort and turn up :o) It was rather wet and cold though, which was unfortunate as the garden is the the main space to go to be able to hear anyone :oP
In any case, it was a lot better than the advertising implied... is a good thing I'd been before. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in thinking of an all-capitals description talking about a 'Prolapse Hour' to start the night and a title reading 'DANCE UNTIL YOU PISS BLOOD THEN DRINK IT OUT OF A PINT GLASS' is not really painting the night in the best possible light. Really... someone should take control of the advertising away from the DJ and his rather bizarre ideas of what sort of night people want... :o/
Unfortunately, Lacuna_Raze wasn't feeling up for gaming on the Sunday so I trundled along by myself to Chris' where I, _phoenixrising, LittleCyberAlex, Chris and some of his friends played Monopoly. I naively thought I got off to a good start by making the first lap first but then fate conspired against me and I watched as everyone else bought most of the properties whilst I struggled to get the scraps. As is the nature of monopoly, the rest was a slow grind to the inevitably :oP
We played Settlers of Catan after Chris' friends left and I even won a game, yay me! :oD
Managed to stay a fair bit busier come the next week.
I was in town on Monday anyway because I had some lipstick I needed to buy at boots (ended up buying two but only because there was a free gift if I did) and met up with Amber and Jas whilst they were down town before catching the last bus out. On Tuesday Lacuna_Raze came to stay over (which we're trying to make a regular thing) and on Wednesday I spent most of the day at the library. :o) I decided to try to start going to Terminate @ Dungeon regularly after the last one went well and this one was good too as Rocksoc decided to end their pub crawl there, which kept it busy, I'll probably be trying to go regularly from now on. :o) I didn't go out on Friday but Luke came over and we played a couple of games of Ideology: The War of Ideas (I even won one game) and then some Settlers :o)
I have a horrible feeling that I left the velvet hoodie that I've been wearing for about five years down there but it wasn't turned in :o/ Damn. Have bought myself a new one and am hoping that the old one turns up.
Saturday managed to be another big night out despite no special event happening, just seemed that all the right people were going to Dungeon. I'd met up with Lacuna_Raze and Joshie before hand at Lacuna_Raze's to get ready :o) (stops me worrying about whether I've screwed up my make-up if Lacuna_Raze is there to inspect) before we made a late entrance to Dungeon, where everyone had arrived already. I may have spent most of the night harassing people with a camera :oP
We also headed down to Edge afterwards, just because Dungeon shuts so early. Just about everyone else left before close except for me; I just wasn't in the mood to go home yet so stuck about on the dancefloor until the end of the night :o)
I guess that makes Sunday the only day that I didn't really do anything, but I think I'm allowed on day off :oP I ended up staying up late watching old episodes and specials of Doctor Who :oD
Back to fortnightly Job Seekers appointments now so didn't need to get up on Wednesday morning, although I wish I'd remembered that sooner than a few hours before hand. :oP
Went to Dungeon on Thursday again, which was back to being rather quiet. Still, knew most people who were there so it wasn't as bad as if it had just been that quiet and I still knew the same proportion of people as on other nights. People went to Hobbit afterwards but I didn't leave soon enough to make it before they stopped letting people in, damn :o/ Still a good night all in all. Saturday night at Dungeon was better but with added blackout; was quite bizarre, kinda liked it though just because it seemed so odd for all the music and lights to suddenly cut out (not sure how long they stayed out for but was quite a while). Went down Edge with a bunch of people afterwards before going back to Ben's place afterwards. Didn't end up staying the night and opted to made a (very cold) morning walk to the bus stops by the university and head home :o) Was planning to visit LittleCyberAlex but I ended up sleeping through most of Sunday :oP
Have now decorated my room with black ceiling decorations and silver tinsel on the walls :oD
The lead-up to Christmas was very quiet so I mostly spent time in my room watching stuff on my laptop :oP
Finally got around to watching the 2005 production of Oliver Twist that I bought ages ago; the aesthetics/visuals of the film were nice and atmospheric but a lot of the dialogue felt clumsy and stilted; probably because they were keen to take it straight from the book (which rarely works well anyway, never mind with books from that era or earlier). Was surprised at the unusual choices of what to leave out from the book but at least it gave them time to give something different from normal. Still prefer the BBC version.
Also watched Thirteenth Floor. I'd pretty much guessed the 'twist' early on but dismissed it because it seemed a bit too obvious; doesn't even have the excuse of being that old. Still interesting though.
Christmas day was spent with family, including a few board games. Got quit a few DVDs, a few books (including the Inquisitor's Handbook for Dark Heresy) as well as fourteen bottles of wine; going to need a bigger wine rack :oP
I was hoping to go down Dungeon on Christmas Eve but it was shut so I went out on Boxing Day instead, which turned out to be very quiet, shame. Is nice in a way to just have a small group of people where you know everyone but it doesn't lend the right atmosphere for dancing :o/ Made up for it by spending Sunday with LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat and winning two out of three games of Settlers of Catan :oD
Which then left me with being sad and just spending every day in front of my computer again :oP Had gotten the 1999 live-action version of Animal Farm for Christmas (which I didn't realise existed; had only seen the animated one), which was nice although it felt a little too rushed in places. I dropped the attempt at being serious and intellectual after that and just watched through three seasons of Mighty Boosh after that anyway :oP (it's a bit hit and miss but can be very funny sometimes) :o)
I played Trivial Pursuit with family the day before New Year's. I always thought I wouldn't be much good at that sort of game but it turns out that I know more Trivia than I thought I did and my team won (and I think I answered at least half the winning questions for my side). Go me! :oD Still prefer non-trivia based games though :o)
On New Year's Eve itself I headed over to LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat's place for a house party with lots of other people including Lacuna_Raze and Joshie (although I'd already gotten through my first bottle of wine before they arrived). Was quite a good night I think. I ended up going to sleep on the couch about half-six in the morning, after phoning Lacuna_Raze to make sure she'd made her coach and headed home about ten in the morning :o)
Meme: Decade Review
Here's my attempt to sum up my decade. I'll likely miss lots of really fun and exciting things that I've done and there will be lots of people I'll have failed to mention who I really like but it is a summary of an entire decade, so I think that's forgivable. :o)
2000 - Was the year I graduated from Weston Park Boy's school, which was a relief as I hated it there. My grades had suffered a bit in the last few years (which had a lot to do with me hating going to school) but they were okay and I enrolled in my first year at Itchen College, which I enjoyed a lot better. The original theory was to end up doing something in computing so I choose a course in Computing along with some other subjects I was advised would go well with it, Maths (which I dropped very quickly for English Lit.) and Physics (which I didn't drop but should have), Sociology just for fun and General Studies just because. Was also the year I managed to cause a surprising amount of fuss by turning up cross-dressed on Halloween (linky), which managed to get someone punched and me having to have a number of meetings with college officials. I'd also started my first serious relationship with Katie earlier that year. I first attended Dungeon with Katie and LittleCyberAlex on my sixteenth birthday that year :o)
2001 - When my grades came in from my first year at college, I was a bit disappointed. I barely passed Physics (which didn't surprise me) and did very badly at English Lit (which did surprise me). I'd gotten bored of Computing but had gotten good grades so was persuaded to continue studying it for another year (mistake). On the plus side, my Sociology course had gone well and I'd taken up Psychology, Politics and Critical Thinking as well :oD I'd done temp work over the Christmas holidays, my first paid work other than labouring for my father and my paper round during school, which was unfortunately working in refrigerated food packaging factories; there's something deeply unpleasant about standing in a giant fridge for eight hours gutting fish. :oP Was also the year of Sept 11 of course; I first heard about it as someone announced something about a plane crashing in America during a class, which I didn't appreciate the significance of until I'd gotten home and read more about it online. I think it was probably about that time that I was active in a local Socialist group/political party; one of the perks of which was getting to attend the counting of the votes during the general election.
2002 - This was the year that it came out that the exam boards had given out a lot of U and similar grades to even out the results, causing mass of papers to be remarked. I'd gotten a couple of inexplicable U grades on my Sociology exams but they'd decided that those ones were fine, so I had to resit the year. Despite that, I still had a better year than my first as I started studying more humanities subject, which turned out to be a lot more 'my thing' than more science-based subjects. As well as doing a second year of Sociology and Psychology, I took up Religious Studies (which is what eventually would persuade me to study Philosophy at university) and Classical Civilisations. I moved into a flat nearby my college with Katie that year, which was a really silly mistake in hindsight because there was already enough going on that would have me end a relationship instantly if it happened now. We took in an abandoned Kitten called Georgie, which helped me change my stance on pets (a little anyway). Was also the year I started work at Subway, which was at least better than working in a refrigerated factory.
2003 - My grades finally worked out this year. I'd managed to score 100% marks on the Sociology exams that I'd been given a U for last year and got good grades with the rest of my subjects. I'd started enjoying Religious Studies so much that I decided to pay to study for a third year and finish the A level. Meanwhile me and Katie moved out to Northam (nearby Dungeon) and I started doing night-shifts at Subway, which meant spending the night serving drunks coming out of the fairly dodgy clubs on the High Street (Flairs actually had multiple police cars and vans with police dogs outside every night). I ended up calling the police a few times and had to testify at a court once, on one occasion someone actually had their head smashed into the glass 'spit shield' and ended up with glass embedded in his face, nasty! I think it was about this time that Katie started going away to college in the middle-of-nowhere for her veterinary nurse training, leaving me with the flat to myself, which was the first time I was 'living alone' as it were (though mother would still turn up with lots of crisps and muffins to make sure I stayed well-fed anyway)
2004 - My last year of college was a lot of fun. I'd pretty much mastered how to write an A level essay and my new game was aiming to get 100% marks on the exam and feeling smugly self-satisfied when I managed it (and when I didn't I was only a couple of marks off). Basically, my intellectual self-confidence was quite high. :o) I was accepted into all five universities I applied to and the choice came down to either Theology at Canterbury Christ Church College or Philosophy at the University of Southampton and I choose the latter, at least partly because I was still living with Katie so moving wasn't very practical. I started getting my student loan and quite Subway (yay!) and had lots of fun trying to keep on top of my reading (did most of the important reading) whilst spending a lot of time being geeky at the Games Society :o)
2005 - After about five years, I finally split up with Katie early in the year and moved back in with my parents. I can't say the transition to living with my parents again was entirely comfortable (although I do get on with my parents and haven't much to complain about) but it was good that the relationship had finally ended. Truth was that the relationship had died long ago and should have ended earlier so I felt more relieved than upset. Meanwhile I made the most of my new found freedom and spent a lot of time visiting friends in Portsmouth and London (who I'd met mostly online through livejournal and VF). I'd been too Slimelight once before with Katie but I'd really started to experience it properly by myself now and was a bit of a regular for a period. ThePussyKat, who LittleCyberAlex had introduced me to, took me camping at Labyrinth, which was brilliant. I had some kind of extended 'thing' with elephantmusic, which was nice and fun at the time although whether it was a relationship or just a 'fling' is debatable (but doesn't really matter now anyway). I then started a more successful relationship with Elegy_of_Flames. I averaged a first during my first year but mostly only due to the Logic and Critical Thinking modules (I got 100% on the logic and 80% on the Critical Thinking). My other modules weren't as high as I had hoped though so I decided to spend more time in my second year concentrating on my studying and less time at Gamesoc.
2006 -I'd realised in my second year that it was often not too hard to predict the topics I had to choose from (and often, more or less, the questions) for my exams so I took up the technique of not only writing out a sufficient number of plans to make sure I had enough to answer at least one question but also to just write out the entire essay. Often the essays needed very little adjustment and I could just reproduce them in the exam room; ended up with a few firsts that way! Was also the year that I got a first (71) for my Kant exam and a first (79) for my Kant essay, which I'm still quite chuffed by :oP In terms of personal life, my relationship with Elegy_of_Flames had started to go less well due to a mixture of personality clashes and me not wanting to be in a monogamous relationship, so we broke it off. I had a brief and, in hindsight, ill-advised relationship with Fraggleonspeed, which ended for the exact sorts of reasons I could have predicted it to have if I'd listened to other people more; I chalk that one up to bad character judgement, we did attend the first 'Wrecked' Goth Boat Party on the Thames together though, which was quite good. Towards the end of the year, me and Elegy_of_Flames attempted to start a new, and this time polyamorous, relationship but in the end we barely saw each other anyway. On a more positive note, I met Lacuna_Raze for the first time that year, although it would take me some time to weasel my way into getting to know her. :o)
2007 - My third year of university was a little anti-climatic; it had become more and more unavoidable that I was getting a 2.i, with the grades I'd need to get on my remaining exams to change that either way getting more and more extreme (when it came down to my last few modules I realised that I'd need to fail them all to get less). I had always hoped for a first and was a bit disappointed that I'd fallen shy of the boundary but I think a 2i is still a very good grade and nowt to be ashamed of. :o) After graduating I started a data entry/telephony job at Royal Bank of Scotland, which was a lot nicer than my previous jobs (not hard!). I met and dated SweetCyanide, and we had a lot of fun together, including going to my first Polyday and the second time I went to 'Wrecked'. My relationship with Elegy_of_Flames ended but, in hindsight, it had never properly started again and it was probably best for both of us to move on. ThePussyKat invited me to Labyrinth again; despite losing weight, I found the walk there a lot harder, which just goes to show that weight and fitness are two separate things. This time I also got lost in the dark and nearly had to sleep on the ground that night until someone rescued me. :oP Der-katzchen also came to visit me during the Summer months, which was brilliant although I may have embarrassed myself by squealing when caterpillars started falling on me from the trees in the park :oP
2008 - I had my first Whitby in 2008, at the time it was the furthest north I'd travelled. It was a lot of fun but I don't think I'd spend that much money again unless I was travelling with someone close to me (or I get significantly more rich). After some long discussions about feminism/etc, I started dating WildeAbandon, who I attended my second Polyday with, after meeting at my first visit to Antichrist. I also finally got to start dating Lacuna_Raze after trying to get to know her better for about two years, and we attended the third 'Wrecked' Goth Boat Party together (although I was a bit disappointed that they changed the boat). At that point I had the most partners I'd ever had (three). Along with SweetCyanide and WildeAbandon, I was partially involved in some filming for a documentary on polyamory, although I came to regret being involved after they film crew were uncomfortable with me being 'Goth' and 'effeminate' and I was put under a fair bit of pressure to 'tone it down' (complicated by a very unsupportive metamour); in the end I was glad that the footage wasn't used. Me and SweetCyanide drifted apart over time and ended up separating and me and WildeAbandon separated for similar reasons also. I attended a very wet Labyrinth later than normal in the year, which was a lot of fun even if we did all feel a bit insane to decide to go camping despite the rather aggressive rainfall. :oP
2009 - My job opening bank accounts at RBS came to an end as they started shifting all the work abroad but I managed to find a new job at HSBC within a couple of weeks; was quite good for me in a way because I'd grown increasingly tired of the job I was doing (which was originally only meant to be a six month contract). The new job went over it's contract as well but ended in time for me to visit Edinburgh (beautiful city) with Lacuna_Raze. Lacking any other partners, me and Lacuna_Raze grew a lot closer and started spending the majority of our weekends together. I've had relationships that suffered from spending too much time together but me and Lacuna_Raze find ourselves very comfortable with each other, probably in part because we have very similar attitudes, perspectives and values despite being on opposite sides of the introvert/extrovert divide. We also attended Labyrinth together, making it the first camping trip I'd had with a partner. Turned out to be a lot easier on my legs too after a year of hour long walks back home after work every day. :o) I've not managed to get another job yet after my contract with HSBC and have spent much of the latter part of the year unemployed but fortunately I've saved up a lot of money from living alone so it's not yet affected my lifestyle, just left me a bit bored during the week! Have tried achieving more with my time, including a vague attempt at writing, but I think the routine of a job would probably do me some good right now (including the regular exercise from walking home!).
Looking at all that, it feels like I've come a long way over this decade and grown up a lot, although given that I was fifteen when it started that's probably not surprising! :oP It should be interesting to see what my next decade meme looks like in another ten years in 2020 when I'm thirty-five. :o)
Link: Gay British soldier talks about coming out: linky
Link: 'Psychological Violence' ban - linky
I finished reading Abnett's 'Alpharus'. As ever, nice setting, nicely fleshed out characters but the ending felt a bit rushed. On the plus side, it did feel rushed but not silly (which Abnett's book endings could often be accused of). Without being spoilery, it's a pre-heresy book about one of the Space Marine legions ('Space Marine' always seems an silly name for a military force where travel through space is ordinary, they should have just been called 'Imperial Marines'). If I'd thought about it then I could probably have guessed the outcome more or less but I'd forgotten whether they were listed as traitors or loyalists in the Horus Heresy, so bit of a surprise ending (although still rushed...)
The rushed/silly endings do spoil things a bit but it could still be worse. Richard William's 'Relentless' has very good pacing and I liked how the workings of an Imperial Navy warship was fleshed out and made interesting but the characters were very shallow and very much exactly what you expected them to be and the plot line was ultimately very predictable, so perhaps there are more important things than how a book ends.
During the first week of the month, I decided on a change and went to Terminate @ Dungeon on Thursday. A girl (Jaz), that I'd met the week before, and some of her friends were going and had suggested it and the facebook event suggested that a few other of my friends would be there so I decided to give it a shot despite the previous nights I'd been being deathly quiet. Turned out to be really good; it was still quiet but with enough distinct groups that I recognised and knew that I could wander around and say hello to people. Previously it had been more a case of 'here's the six people I know, there's the three people I don't and there's a couple more perhaps on the dancefloor' :oP
Industrial Fallout on Saturday was very good, as expected. Was brilliant to see those friends who normally don't bother with coming out to make the effort and turn up :o) It was rather wet and cold though, which was unfortunate as the garden is the the main space to go to be able to hear anyone :oP
In any case, it was a lot better than the advertising implied... is a good thing I'd been before. I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in thinking of an all-capitals description talking about a 'Prolapse Hour' to start the night and a title reading 'DANCE UNTIL YOU PISS BLOOD THEN DRINK IT OUT OF A PINT GLASS' is not really painting the night in the best possible light. Really... someone should take control of the advertising away from the DJ and his rather bizarre ideas of what sort of night people want... :o/
Unfortunately, Lacuna_Raze wasn't feeling up for gaming on the Sunday so I trundled along by myself to Chris' where I, _phoenixrising, LittleCyberAlex, Chris and some of his friends played Monopoly. I naively thought I got off to a good start by making the first lap first but then fate conspired against me and I watched as everyone else bought most of the properties whilst I struggled to get the scraps. As is the nature of monopoly, the rest was a slow grind to the inevitably :oP
We played Settlers of Catan after Chris' friends left and I even won a game, yay me! :oD
Managed to stay a fair bit busier come the next week.
I was in town on Monday anyway because I had some lipstick I needed to buy at boots (ended up buying two but only because there was a free gift if I did) and met up with Amber and Jas whilst they were down town before catching the last bus out. On Tuesday Lacuna_Raze came to stay over (which we're trying to make a regular thing) and on Wednesday I spent most of the day at the library. :o) I decided to try to start going to Terminate @ Dungeon regularly after the last one went well and this one was good too as Rocksoc decided to end their pub crawl there, which kept it busy, I'll probably be trying to go regularly from now on. :o) I didn't go out on Friday but Luke came over and we played a couple of games of Ideology: The War of Ideas (I even won one game) and then some Settlers :o)
I have a horrible feeling that I left the velvet hoodie that I've been wearing for about five years down there but it wasn't turned in :o/ Damn. Have bought myself a new one and am hoping that the old one turns up.
Saturday managed to be another big night out despite no special event happening, just seemed that all the right people were going to Dungeon. I'd met up with Lacuna_Raze and Joshie before hand at Lacuna_Raze's to get ready :o) (stops me worrying about whether I've screwed up my make-up if Lacuna_Raze is there to inspect) before we made a late entrance to Dungeon, where everyone had arrived already. I may have spent most of the night harassing people with a camera :oP
We also headed down to Edge afterwards, just because Dungeon shuts so early. Just about everyone else left before close except for me; I just wasn't in the mood to go home yet so stuck about on the dancefloor until the end of the night :o)
I guess that makes Sunday the only day that I didn't really do anything, but I think I'm allowed on day off :oP I ended up staying up late watching old episodes and specials of Doctor Who :oD
Back to fortnightly Job Seekers appointments now so didn't need to get up on Wednesday morning, although I wish I'd remembered that sooner than a few hours before hand. :oP
Went to Dungeon on Thursday again, which was back to being rather quiet. Still, knew most people who were there so it wasn't as bad as if it had just been that quiet and I still knew the same proportion of people as on other nights. People went to Hobbit afterwards but I didn't leave soon enough to make it before they stopped letting people in, damn :o/ Still a good night all in all. Saturday night at Dungeon was better but with added blackout; was quite bizarre, kinda liked it though just because it seemed so odd for all the music and lights to suddenly cut out (not sure how long they stayed out for but was quite a while). Went down Edge with a bunch of people afterwards before going back to Ben's place afterwards. Didn't end up staying the night and opted to made a (very cold) morning walk to the bus stops by the university and head home :o) Was planning to visit LittleCyberAlex but I ended up sleeping through most of Sunday :oP
Have now decorated my room with black ceiling decorations and silver tinsel on the walls :oD
The lead-up to Christmas was very quiet so I mostly spent time in my room watching stuff on my laptop :oP
Finally got around to watching the 2005 production of Oliver Twist that I bought ages ago; the aesthetics/visuals of the film were nice and atmospheric but a lot of the dialogue felt clumsy and stilted; probably because they were keen to take it straight from the book (which rarely works well anyway, never mind with books from that era or earlier). Was surprised at the unusual choices of what to leave out from the book but at least it gave them time to give something different from normal. Still prefer the BBC version.
Also watched Thirteenth Floor. I'd pretty much guessed the 'twist' early on but dismissed it because it seemed a bit too obvious; doesn't even have the excuse of being that old. Still interesting though.
Christmas day was spent with family, including a few board games. Got quit a few DVDs, a few books (including the Inquisitor's Handbook for Dark Heresy) as well as fourteen bottles of wine; going to need a bigger wine rack :oP
I was hoping to go down Dungeon on Christmas Eve but it was shut so I went out on Boxing Day instead, which turned out to be very quiet, shame. Is nice in a way to just have a small group of people where you know everyone but it doesn't lend the right atmosphere for dancing :o/ Made up for it by spending Sunday with LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat and winning two out of three games of Settlers of Catan :oD
Which then left me with being sad and just spending every day in front of my computer again :oP Had gotten the 1999 live-action version of Animal Farm for Christmas (which I didn't realise existed; had only seen the animated one), which was nice although it felt a little too rushed in places. I dropped the attempt at being serious and intellectual after that and just watched through three seasons of Mighty Boosh after that anyway :oP (it's a bit hit and miss but can be very funny sometimes) :o)
I played Trivial Pursuit with family the day before New Year's. I always thought I wouldn't be much good at that sort of game but it turns out that I know more Trivia than I thought I did and my team won (and I think I answered at least half the winning questions for my side). Go me! :oD Still prefer non-trivia based games though :o)
On New Year's Eve itself I headed over to LittleCyberAlex and ThePussyKat's place for a house party with lots of other people including Lacuna_Raze and Joshie (although I'd already gotten through my first bottle of wine before they arrived). Was quite a good night I think. I ended up going to sleep on the couch about half-six in the morning, after phoning Lacuna_Raze to make sure she'd made her coach and headed home about ten in the morning :o)
Meme: Decade Review
Here's my attempt to sum up my decade. I'll likely miss lots of really fun and exciting things that I've done and there will be lots of people I'll have failed to mention who I really like but it is a summary of an entire decade, so I think that's forgivable. :o)
2000 - Was the year I graduated from Weston Park Boy's school, which was a relief as I hated it there. My grades had suffered a bit in the last few years (which had a lot to do with me hating going to school) but they were okay and I enrolled in my first year at Itchen College, which I enjoyed a lot better. The original theory was to end up doing something in computing so I choose a course in Computing along with some other subjects I was advised would go well with it, Maths (which I dropped very quickly for English Lit.) and Physics (which I didn't drop but should have), Sociology just for fun and General Studies just because. Was also the year I managed to cause a surprising amount of fuss by turning up cross-dressed on Halloween (linky), which managed to get someone punched and me having to have a number of meetings with college officials. I'd also started my first serious relationship with Katie earlier that year. I first attended Dungeon with Katie and LittleCyberAlex on my sixteenth birthday that year :o)
2001 - When my grades came in from my first year at college, I was a bit disappointed. I barely passed Physics (which didn't surprise me) and did very badly at English Lit (which did surprise me). I'd gotten bored of Computing but had gotten good grades so was persuaded to continue studying it for another year (mistake). On the plus side, my Sociology course had gone well and I'd taken up Psychology, Politics and Critical Thinking as well :oD I'd done temp work over the Christmas holidays, my first paid work other than labouring for my father and my paper round during school, which was unfortunately working in refrigerated food packaging factories; there's something deeply unpleasant about standing in a giant fridge for eight hours gutting fish. :oP Was also the year of Sept 11 of course; I first heard about it as someone announced something about a plane crashing in America during a class, which I didn't appreciate the significance of until I'd gotten home and read more about it online. I think it was probably about that time that I was active in a local Socialist group/political party; one of the perks of which was getting to attend the counting of the votes during the general election.
2002 - This was the year that it came out that the exam boards had given out a lot of U and similar grades to even out the results, causing mass of papers to be remarked. I'd gotten a couple of inexplicable U grades on my Sociology exams but they'd decided that those ones were fine, so I had to resit the year. Despite that, I still had a better year than my first as I started studying more humanities subject, which turned out to be a lot more 'my thing' than more science-based subjects. As well as doing a second year of Sociology and Psychology, I took up Religious Studies (which is what eventually would persuade me to study Philosophy at university) and Classical Civilisations. I moved into a flat nearby my college with Katie that year, which was a really silly mistake in hindsight because there was already enough going on that would have me end a relationship instantly if it happened now. We took in an abandoned Kitten called Georgie, which helped me change my stance on pets (a little anyway). Was also the year I started work at Subway, which was at least better than working in a refrigerated factory.
2003 - My grades finally worked out this year. I'd managed to score 100% marks on the Sociology exams that I'd been given a U for last year and got good grades with the rest of my subjects. I'd started enjoying Religious Studies so much that I decided to pay to study for a third year and finish the A level. Meanwhile me and Katie moved out to Northam (nearby Dungeon) and I started doing night-shifts at Subway, which meant spending the night serving drunks coming out of the fairly dodgy clubs on the High Street (Flairs actually had multiple police cars and vans with police dogs outside every night). I ended up calling the police a few times and had to testify at a court once, on one occasion someone actually had their head smashed into the glass 'spit shield' and ended up with glass embedded in his face, nasty! I think it was about this time that Katie started going away to college in the middle-of-nowhere for her veterinary nurse training, leaving me with the flat to myself, which was the first time I was 'living alone' as it were (though mother would still turn up with lots of crisps and muffins to make sure I stayed well-fed anyway)
2004 - My last year of college was a lot of fun. I'd pretty much mastered how to write an A level essay and my new game was aiming to get 100% marks on the exam and feeling smugly self-satisfied when I managed it (and when I didn't I was only a couple of marks off). Basically, my intellectual self-confidence was quite high. :o) I was accepted into all five universities I applied to and the choice came down to either Theology at Canterbury Christ Church College or Philosophy at the University of Southampton and I choose the latter, at least partly because I was still living with Katie so moving wasn't very practical. I started getting my student loan and quite Subway (yay!) and had lots of fun trying to keep on top of my reading (did most of the important reading) whilst spending a lot of time being geeky at the Games Society :o)
2005 - After about five years, I finally split up with Katie early in the year and moved back in with my parents. I can't say the transition to living with my parents again was entirely comfortable (although I do get on with my parents and haven't much to complain about) but it was good that the relationship had finally ended. Truth was that the relationship had died long ago and should have ended earlier so I felt more relieved than upset. Meanwhile I made the most of my new found freedom and spent a lot of time visiting friends in Portsmouth and London (who I'd met mostly online through livejournal and VF). I'd been too Slimelight once before with Katie but I'd really started to experience it properly by myself now and was a bit of a regular for a period. ThePussyKat, who LittleCyberAlex had introduced me to, took me camping at Labyrinth, which was brilliant. I had some kind of extended 'thing' with elephantmusic, which was nice and fun at the time although whether it was a relationship or just a 'fling' is debatable (but doesn't really matter now anyway). I then started a more successful relationship with Elegy_of_Flames. I averaged a first during my first year but mostly only due to the Logic and Critical Thinking modules (I got 100% on the logic and 80% on the Critical Thinking). My other modules weren't as high as I had hoped though so I decided to spend more time in my second year concentrating on my studying and less time at Gamesoc.
2006 -I'd realised in my second year that it was often not too hard to predict the topics I had to choose from (and often, more or less, the questions) for my exams so I took up the technique of not only writing out a sufficient number of plans to make sure I had enough to answer at least one question but also to just write out the entire essay. Often the essays needed very little adjustment and I could just reproduce them in the exam room; ended up with a few firsts that way! Was also the year that I got a first (71) for my Kant exam and a first (79) for my Kant essay, which I'm still quite chuffed by :oP In terms of personal life, my relationship with Elegy_of_Flames had started to go less well due to a mixture of personality clashes and me not wanting to be in a monogamous relationship, so we broke it off. I had a brief and, in hindsight, ill-advised relationship with Fraggleonspeed, which ended for the exact sorts of reasons I could have predicted it to have if I'd listened to other people more; I chalk that one up to bad character judgement, we did attend the first 'Wrecked' Goth Boat Party on the Thames together though, which was quite good. Towards the end of the year, me and Elegy_of_Flames attempted to start a new, and this time polyamorous, relationship but in the end we barely saw each other anyway. On a more positive note, I met Lacuna_Raze for the first time that year, although it would take me some time to weasel my way into getting to know her. :o)
2007 - My third year of university was a little anti-climatic; it had become more and more unavoidable that I was getting a 2.i, with the grades I'd need to get on my remaining exams to change that either way getting more and more extreme (when it came down to my last few modules I realised that I'd need to fail them all to get less). I had always hoped for a first and was a bit disappointed that I'd fallen shy of the boundary but I think a 2i is still a very good grade and nowt to be ashamed of. :o) After graduating I started a data entry/telephony job at Royal Bank of Scotland, which was a lot nicer than my previous jobs (not hard!). I met and dated SweetCyanide, and we had a lot of fun together, including going to my first Polyday and the second time I went to 'Wrecked'. My relationship with Elegy_of_Flames ended but, in hindsight, it had never properly started again and it was probably best for both of us to move on. ThePussyKat invited me to Labyrinth again; despite losing weight, I found the walk there a lot harder, which just goes to show that weight and fitness are two separate things. This time I also got lost in the dark and nearly had to sleep on the ground that night until someone rescued me. :oP Der-katzchen also came to visit me during the Summer months, which was brilliant although I may have embarrassed myself by squealing when caterpillars started falling on me from the trees in the park :oP
2008 - I had my first Whitby in 2008, at the time it was the furthest north I'd travelled. It was a lot of fun but I don't think I'd spend that much money again unless I was travelling with someone close to me (or I get significantly more rich). After some long discussions about feminism/etc, I started dating WildeAbandon, who I attended my second Polyday with, after meeting at my first visit to Antichrist. I also finally got to start dating Lacuna_Raze after trying to get to know her better for about two years, and we attended the third 'Wrecked' Goth Boat Party together (although I was a bit disappointed that they changed the boat). At that point I had the most partners I'd ever had (three). Along with SweetCyanide and WildeAbandon, I was partially involved in some filming for a documentary on polyamory, although I came to regret being involved after they film crew were uncomfortable with me being 'Goth' and 'effeminate' and I was put under a fair bit of pressure to 'tone it down' (complicated by a very unsupportive metamour); in the end I was glad that the footage wasn't used. Me and SweetCyanide drifted apart over time and ended up separating and me and WildeAbandon separated for similar reasons also. I attended a very wet Labyrinth later than normal in the year, which was a lot of fun even if we did all feel a bit insane to decide to go camping despite the rather aggressive rainfall. :oP
2009 - My job opening bank accounts at RBS came to an end as they started shifting all the work abroad but I managed to find a new job at HSBC within a couple of weeks; was quite good for me in a way because I'd grown increasingly tired of the job I was doing (which was originally only meant to be a six month contract). The new job went over it's contract as well but ended in time for me to visit Edinburgh (beautiful city) with Lacuna_Raze. Lacking any other partners, me and Lacuna_Raze grew a lot closer and started spending the majority of our weekends together. I've had relationships that suffered from spending too much time together but me and Lacuna_Raze find ourselves very comfortable with each other, probably in part because we have very similar attitudes, perspectives and values despite being on opposite sides of the introvert/extrovert divide. We also attended Labyrinth together, making it the first camping trip I'd had with a partner. Turned out to be a lot easier on my legs too after a year of hour long walks back home after work every day. :o) I've not managed to get another job yet after my contract with HSBC and have spent much of the latter part of the year unemployed but fortunately I've saved up a lot of money from living alone so it's not yet affected my lifestyle, just left me a bit bored during the week! Have tried achieving more with my time, including a vague attempt at writing, but I think the routine of a job would probably do me some good right now (including the regular exercise from walking home!).
Looking at all that, it feels like I've come a long way over this decade and grown up a lot, although given that I was fifteen when it started that's probably not surprising! :oP It should be interesting to see what my next decade meme looks like in another ten years in 2020 when I'm thirty-five. :o)
Link: Gay British soldier talks about coming out: linky
Link: 'Psychological Violence' ban - linky