Damn Freshers!

Gah, stupid freshers! Not only did we have a fire alarm this morning (ok, 9:45 wasn't such an unreasonable time I suppose) but I think I'm getting Fresher's Flu. Ok, so it's more like a slight cold but I feel like blaming someone.

Enterprising

I've joined Yound Enterprise this year. I did it in College and i think it's a great scheme. Essentially you set up and run a business for the duration of the academic year. It's great at giving you an insight into how a small business can function and really helps develop interpersonal skills.
At college we made personalised, printed T-Shirts and we are probably going to end up doing something similar this year (although hopefully better). I'm a little dissappointed that there isn't any sort of inter-university competition but we may try and organise something with other local unis.
There is one potential issue: I'm the only guy...in a group of about 10. Ok, on the one hand I'm single,....but on the other hand (and without meaning to be too sexist), how easy it to get 9 women to agree on anything?

Blackout!

Yesterday saw the end of the world! Ok, I'm exaggerating a lot but there was certainly a lot of inconveniece caused. At about 12:30pm, there was a power cut to the university (and to Egham so someone said however this is just hearsay). This meant that, apart from there being no lights or power (obviously) there was no access to the network, and no water (I assume it's pumped everywhere). Some lecturers decided to cancel their lectures but, unfortunately, mine didn't so I had to sit through 2 hours of Computational Optimisation, in a dark room, with, well, lets just say he's not the most charismatic lecturer we have.
Afterwards, I came back to my room, and was feeling quite tired so I decided to lie down for a while until the photography social I was due to go to at 7:00pm. I turned my radio on so that, when the power came back on, it would wake me up....... Eventually I woke up at about 6:45pm of my own accord, slightly disorientated as you don't really notice how much abient light is provided until it's gone. I headed off to see if the social was still on despite the blackout. It was and by then a lot of places had lights back on but I gather the power was restored to my halls at about 7:30pm.
Not quite sure what caused the power to be out for so long but I seem to remember power issues at the start of other years. I'd make some joke about them not paying their bill....but I can't be bothered.

What a way to wake up

Before I went to sleep the other night, I tuned my radio into a random station so I'd wake up to music rather than "Nick Ferrari - God of Radio" (ok, that's not quite his tagline but it sounds like the sort of thing he thinks) on "London's LBC". The following morning, I woke up to Johnny Vaughan on Capital FM interviewing none other than David Hasselhoff! They played his new single which has to be one of the funniest/cheesiest things I've heard in ages. Below is the video for your viewing pleasure.....

Well, I feel safe!

The inevitable happened today. I have a swipe card to access my building, flat and room. When I enter my room I have to put the card in a slot by the door so that the lights work. It's all very fancy but doesn't seem to take into account that people will often want to go from their room to the kitchen without locking their door.
Anyhow, today I did that and accidentally locked my card in my room. So, off I went to the "New Halls Reception" to ask for a temporary card to get back into my room. The conversation went something like this......

Me: "Hi, I've locked myself out of my room"
Receptionist: "Ok, what room are you in?"
Me: "XXXXXX hall, Block X, Flat XX, Room X"
Receptionist: [Looks for number to program temporary card which is on a paper list sitting on the desk] "Ok, here you go. Bring the card back next time you pass"

Note that at no time did she ask who I was, did she verify that the name I gave was that of the person who rents my room, nor did she take note of who she had given the temporary card to. So now I have a card which, now that I've used it to get in my room, can't be used again (it's one swipe only)..........unless I go on ebay and buy a magnetic card reader/writer. All it would then take is for someone to distract the receptionist while I run off with the list of codes and everyone would be receiving second hand laptops and stereos for Christmas!

Obviously it's unlikely to happen, but if one person can think of it then why not more? I'm going to mention it to the manager of the halls if I can and hope it was just a mistake.

The Ice Palace of Temptation

I've just been to Tesco in Egham to get essential stuff like a whisk so I can make pancakes. Whilst I was there I went into Iceland to see what was on offer. I had forgotten what a magical place it was! 2 Pizzas for £1.50, Ready-Meals £1 each, 6 fish fillets for the price of 6! I'll soon become fat from all this frozen goodness.

Stand in line and empty your wallet at the door!

So, this being freshers week, I went along to the Freshers Fayre today. I've decided I'm going to be far more involved with societies than I have been before. Plus, I don't know many people here so I need to try and make as many friends as possible.
This year I've joined: the French Society (£5), the Photography Society (£5), Ninjitsu (£7 with the first training session being free) and I'm going to sign up to Karate (£7 possibly with a free first session). On top of that everyone who wants to join a society has to buy sports insurance (£6), plus I also got some room contents insurance (£79) which is cheap until you factor in insuring a laptop.
I also signed up for the Milkround which is a free service which sends details of carreer and internship opportunities, and some Entrepreneur thing (I couldn't really hear as we were right next to a speaker in the uni hall but it was free). I'm probably going to take a look at joining the Tech crew at the union if I've got any time. They do the sound and lighting for union events and, as well as being interesting, it's also paid!
I didn't do too bad for freebies either. There was someone from The Happy Man (a local pub) giving out vouchers for a free drink, I got some cinema vouchers, a notebook, some Haribo, and some condoms which inevitably get thrown out at student events such as these.

Level Up

I've just been to the language department "Welcome Party". It was mainly attended by final years and it seems that, now that we're back from our year abroad, we qualify for the next level in small talk.
No longer are the first questions someone asks us, "Where are you from?", "What are you studying?" or "Where are you living?", but rather "Where have you been?" and "What did you do?". I could read this as the establishment of a whole new pecking order of who had the most successful year, who went to the most exotic destination, who got the best results and who had the most rewarding experience........but then again, it could be just another topic of small talk.

The Forgotten Student

Computer Science is a normal degree course. French is a normal degree course. Computer Science with French is not a normal degree course and as such everyone seems to forget about me (I'm talking about admin people here). No-one seems to know about my course and so I end up telling the admin people things they should already know. I went to hand a form in at the French office and was told that I wouldn't have to do the oral exam as, now that I've changed to Computer Science with French the year abroad doesn't count. Erm, wrong. I showed the lady the piece of paper from Comp. Sci. describing the courses which clearly states that I have a year abraod between my second and final years which is organised by the French department.
Ah well, it'll all get sorted eventually.

Back at Uni! Huzzah!!!

Finally, university has started! I moved back up on Sunday with everything packed into my Beetle. The car made it without any problems and, unlike when we'd packed it for a car boot sale earlier in the summer, I could see out of the windows this time (which does help when you're going along the M25).
I'm staying in Gowar, one of the new halls, this year. Rooms are arranged in flats of 8 ensuite bedrooms with a shared kitchen and mine is at the end next to the kitchen. Considering the halls are 2 years old I expected them to show at least a little sign of having been lived in but they are almost pristine. I say almost because my sink has a crack in it where the building is still settling and things in corners keep breaking but that is being replaced.
It hasn't taken long for things to begin to feel normal again. For instance last night (my second night here) we had our first fire alarm go off due to someone spending too long in the shower with the door open, or having a candle in their room, or something along those lines. As usual it was at midnight but it's the little things like being woken up in the middle of the night by a loud, high pitched noise that make things feel familiar.
I don't have much on this week as it's fresher's week which is basically just a week to spend queueing and doing admin stuff. As I'm doing a weird course combination (Computer Science with French) things aren't straightforward for me. For example, my college card expired at the end of June so I have to get a new one. I also have to get a new NUS card (as we do each year) but can't get that until I've got my college card....which they aren't issuing until next week. Oh, and I didn't receive the email about the French oral exam which was sent a month ago and so I only found out the details by chance last week when I asked a friend.
Still, I didn't get eaten alive when I went to hand in a form at the Computer Science office. It's often hit and miss as there are 2 secretaries and only one of them seems to be nice at any one time....and it's not always the same one.
I've got my timetable and have 8 or 9 hours of lectures per week (plus a meeting with my project advisor) and I have Mondays and most Wednesdays off so there's plenty of time to drink study.
Tomorrow I'm going to work on preparing for this oral exam and then there's the Fresher's Fayre to battle through on Thursday/Friday and my exam on Friday.

A wonderful time at Blackgang Chine

I'd forgotten how much fun it could be to act like a kid.
On Sunday I went to the Isle of Wight with a couple of friends. We went to Blackgang Chine for the day to celebrate the birthday of one of them (which was on Monday). Blackgang Chine can, loosely, be described as a Theme Park - it is a park, with attractions, different "lands", and even a rollercoaster. However, if you take a look at the website, you will notice that it doesn't quite match Alton Towers for thrills. We made the most of what was there and had a great time acting like children. The "Funny Mirrors" are indeed very funny and are an excellent way to enter the park (ok, perhaps a hint of sarcasm there).
The rollercoaster there gives some hope of including a thrill in the day, however I'm afraid in this case it's important to emphasise the "coast" in rollercoaster (for 2 reasons in fact - it's slow AND it's next to the coast!). Indeed, the bus journey was more sickening than the rollercoaster. It took 2 different bus rides to get from Ryde to the Park (which is on the south of the island) and we decided to sit on the top deck of the double decker bus. I should point out that this was a bit of a novelty as we don't use buses often (sad I know). It was only during the journey that we realised just how hilly the Isle of Wight is.
Although definitely for the child in you, if you do ever take a trip to Blackgang Chine, I can particularly recommend the "Funny Mirrors", the rollercoaster, the knobbly dinosaurs and of course I mustn't forget the gnomes!

Congratulations!

Unfortunately, due to my "no-names" policy with this blog, this post isn't going to be very good to anyone other than my friends from home. But anyway....

Congratulations to my two good friends who got married last Saturday. I wish them both every success and hope they will be very happy together.

With them getting hitched and other friends getting jobs etc having graduated this summer, I'm beginning to feel a little left behind. Still, I'm really looking forward to getting back to uni.

Big City Life

I went to visit some friends this weekend up in London. I've decided I'm going to be living there once I've finished uni.
I went up on Friday afternoon to meet a couple of good friends I lived with in my second year of uni. They have a 2 bedroom flat in Clapham North and are about 5 minutes walk from Brixton undergraound station. Despite its reputation, what I saw of Brixton high street seemed really nice. Ok, we only got as far as the high-street but the whole area seemed clean, calm and well policed (OK, so seeing 2 groups of about 7 policemen walk past may be a sign but even so....) We spent the evening catching up and the following day we went into London.
It really made me think about when I was in Paris and how much I loved being so close to the city. My friends' flat is in an ideal location being in the (slightly) cheaper part, south of the river, just outside central London.
Saturday evening was the other reason I was up in London. A friend of mine from home/college was having his Stag night! We went for a meal and a few drinks and had a really good time. I don't think we got him drunk enough though as he was the first to wake up the next day.

As I said earlier, I'm definitely going to move into London after my degree. The friends I stayed with suggested about me moving in with them next year which would be great if they're still up for it.
I can't wait to get back to uni. It feels a bit like life is moving on without me but I want to catch up so I can move on too. Whereas I had thought I would probably move back home after uni and find a job here (as I quite like it in the south), I'm beginning to see that there's not really going to be much to come back to. My old friends will have jobs and may have moved away and most of my friends I've made at uni or in France will be scattered too. We're moving house soon so it's not like I'll have that to keep me here.

I haven't lived!

I'm 21 years old, about to start my final year at uni and - despite what I had previously thought - it seems I haven't lived!
I've travelled round 13 European cities in one month, I've been in a hot air balloon many times, I've flown in a microlight, I've taken part in more than one ballooning world record, I've played 3 different musical instruments, I've reached brown belt in Karate and I've lived and worked in Paris for 10 months to name just a few things I've done.
However, despite this, I do feel that I have failed. To start with, I weigh just 9 stone. This is no kind of acheivement when you see that the girl in this BBC news story weighs 34 stone and she is both younger AND shorter than me!
The second example of how little I've done comes from a young lady my mother met the other day. This girl was 20 (a year younger than me) and, it seems, has done far more than I have. She is already married, for the second time, and has not 1, not 2, but 4 children, the first of which she had when she was 13.
I look at these two people - both younger than me - and realise how much work I've got ahead of me.
Still, there's about a month left before I get back to uni - I'd better get started!

Campaign for Common Sense

After seeing a label "Contains Nuts" on a barrel containing loose nuts I have been moved to use my web space at Google Pages. I am hereby starting a Campaign for Common Sense. The aim is get rid of stupid signs and labels such as the example given above and to fight against the ridiculous amount of tolerance given to stupid people.
Over the coming days I will (hopefully) be adding content to http://alasdair.ross.googlepages.com which will, until I get around to getting my own domain name, become the home of my struggle.
I invite you all to join with me and rally against the idiots and the people too dumb to realise that Peanuts ARE nuts and that there is no need to label them as "containing nuts"!

Changes

Ooh, shiny!
You may have noticed some changes on here (well, that depends if there's anyone reading this I suppose). Blogger is in the beta (testing) phase of a new version so I thought I'd give it a go. It makes changing the layout far easier and, as you can see, I've added photos from my Flickr stream and a top 10 chart for the songs I listen to as provided by Last.fm (although at the moment I still need to tidy the layout up and make sure all the text fits).
I'm thinking of making my own blog at some point (rather than use this Blogger one) but that would mean buying a domain name and depends on whether I get round to learning any sort of web development.....

What I love about the internet

I've just watched MySpace: The Movie . I really recommend you download and watch it. I really hate MySpace.com and I think the way this film portrays typical pages will help explain why. I will admit that I haven't used MySpace, nor have I spent much time on the site but that was because I felt physically ill from the abominations created by people on there. I thought I was going to go blind after seeing pink, Matrix style text scrolling down a red background.
Anyhow, just wanted to post the liink to that movie. I'd better go before this starts becoming a tirade about everything I hate on the internet and chavvy people.

Titsup!

"It's funny what life throws at you". This is something people say when something unexpected and unfortunate happens to them. This sentence is pretty stupid as the thing that happens is rarely funny.
A week before I moved back home I brought some of my stuff back. Up until that point I thought my life was pretty damn good. It was that weekend that I found out that everything had gone "titsup". No-one died or anything thankfully but I feel a bit like everything I knew and thought was stable has vanished.
I've been back home for almost a month now. I still haven't got a job but I can't say I've tried too hard to look. There are some adverts in the paper I'm going to chase up though; I need to get some money to do some things to my car (but that's another story).
I finally managed to upload the rest of my photos to flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/aross . It took ages - I did 294 in one go.
Well, that's all I have to say at the moment.

What a palaver!

I'm home...eventually!

As always, I...well, lets just say I wasn't as far in advance with my packing as I should have been on Friday. I ended up packing and cleaning until about 5:45 am - yes, am. I wasn't sure if it was worth going to bed but decided to get a couple of hours sleep. I woke up again at 8:30 am on Saturday to finish things off, attempt to pay in some money, and have my Etats des Lieux.
Unfortunately, as it was the Saturday after Bastille day the banks had decided to take an extra day off so I didn't manage to sort that out. I'll now need to write a letter etc to send back my card and cancel a couple of things.
Dad arrived about 45 minutes before the Etats des Lieux was scheduled and so we managed to get everything into the car and hang the net curtain back up etc. The inspection went fine. The lady didn't notice where I'd scraped the blu-tack marks off the wall (they actually tell you to scrape them off with a blade - the walls aren't painted and are pretty crumbly, but also they aren't flat and have this stupid grooved texture, a bit like an artexed ceiling). She told me that I'd have to pay for someone to come and do a bit of cleaning. I asked why and she said there were some marks. So I asked where these seeminly invisible marks were. "On the microwave and fridge", she said. "Erm, where exactly? I don't see them", I replied. She pointed out a couple of small marks in the corners (honestly it was nothing that wasn't there when I moved in) so I asked if I could just clean it there and then. She said that would be ok so the only thing I ended up paying for was to have my carpet cleaned. They give you the option of getting it done and providing the receipt or letting them do it....but if you get it done yourself and they aren't happy then they'll charge you anyway. I figured it would be easier just to let them do it so, together with the €43 I'd had to spend on dry-cleaning blankets, pillows, etc (another thing they require everyone to do), a new bog brush for 1€ (which I paid for with 2c and 5c pieces) and a new saucepan for about €6 (mine was scratched) I ended up paying about €90 JUST TO LEAVE! Plus, I was told I will get my deposit back within 2 months.
Despite how it may seem, it did go quite smoothly, and so did the journey.
Well, almost.....

We had left earlier than planned and were on track to arrive at Calais in time to catch a much earlier ferry. This would have been great as it is another 2+ hour drive from Dover to home. However, 20km from Calais we broke down. We stopped by an emergency autoroute phone and, after consulting with the RAC, attempted to contact the autoroute recovery people. Unfortunately that phone didn't work so we had to limp to the next phone. We explained what had happened and, after 30-40 minutes, a (slightly grumpy - in a french way) man turned up with a tow truck. He took us to the ferry port and we waited for the next ferry (still earlier than the one we were booked on) before we were towed onto it. All this time, Dad had been in contact with the RAC to find out what would happen once we got to Dover. They told us that there would be a tow truck waiting there when we arrived to take us back home. We confirmed what time we'd get there and all seemed to be going fine.
Once on the ferry, Dad contacted the RAC again to let confirm that we would be arriving soon and that all was going to plan. It turned out the plans had changed and we were to be towed to a compound from where we would pick up a loan car before driving ourselves home as they didn't have someone who could tow us all the way. Right, ok, that's not so bad. Unfortunately, when we arrived the lorry wasn't waiting for us and arrived over an hour later. We then had a 15 minute drive to the compound where we picked up the loan car....which had no fuel in it. We had to spend a further 20 minutes looking for a petrol station. It was about 11:30 pm (UK time) before we actually started the journey home. Remember of course that my Dad had got up at about 2 am to drive to Paris that morning and I'd only had about 2.5 hours sleep. To add insult to injury, we had to leave all my stuff in the car (except valuables) and the car didn't get delivered until Wednesday so I still haven't finished unpacking.

Anyhow, enough ranting about that. My car, the beetle, arrived back from the garage on Wednesday morning so I've been happy driving about a bit. I'm trying to get in contact with local friends but I've still not had responses from everyone. Most of them have finished uni now so I'm not sure if they're staying up there or coming back.
This weekend I'm going to LUGRadio Live 2006. Woo! Yeah!......and none of you know what that is. Well, I'll enjoy it. It's a computer-y, geek-y event with lots of speakers coming and supposedly a party in the evening but I've no idea what that will be like.

I think that's long enough for now. I'll update again soon. Hopefully I'll have a job (or at least have found some adverts for jobs) by then.

The End

It's 12:44 am on Saturday 15th July. In less than 11 hours I have my Etat des Lieux (room inspection) to leave my apartment. I probably ought to finish cleaning/packing but I thought I'd write one final entry from Paris.

This week I have been trying to work my way through my list of things to see. I've not completed it but I'm happy that I've seen most of the important bits. I went home last weekend so lost 4 days of sight-seeing there but this week I have got in:
Tuesday: Lunch with friends from work and Arc de Triomphe
Wednesday: Chateau de Versailles
Thursday: Opéra, Saint-Chapelle and the Musée Rodin

Today is Bastille day. Unfortunately I wasn't awake in time to get down to the Champs Elysées or Place de la Concorde to see the military parade but I did see and hear lots of helicopters flying over. I spent most of the day attempting to pack and clean and offloading 1€ worth of 1c and 2c pieces at Monoprix to buy a toilet brush. The cashier wasn't impressed.
This evening I went to Trocadero. There was a fireworks display on the Champ de Mars, next to the Eiffel Tower and Trocadero would have been the best place to watch it. I say "would have" because I got there a little late and it was absolutely packed. It was litteraly a crush as people pushed forward to try and get a glimpse. The police had put a barrier up to stop people going too far forward but I don't really understand why the barrier was positioned where it was. I managed to get a few glimpses and caught other bits by watching the screens of digital cameras in front of me. After the official display, the area became a bit of a battle ground, a bit like on New Year's Eve. People started launching their own fireworks and bangers. At least I didn't see any fall back into the crowd this time.

I didn't bother trying to catch the metro at Trocadero to get back as there were too many people. Instead, I walked to the Arc de Triomphe to see the Champs Elysée one last time. I realised while walking that my opinion of Paris has changed. A while ago I couldn't imagine myself living here. I saw myself staying for short periods with work but couldn't imagine staying for a long period. Tonight I realised how much I'm going to miss the place; the architecture, the metro (despite the people on it and the fact that it smells), the ease with which I can just nip into the centre for a drink with friends. I would live here again, although next time I'd be more central and I'd try and do more (see more shows, visit more temporary exhibitions, etc).

People often mistake the French for being rude however I've come to learn that this is wrong. (What I'm about to say applies to the general public and is not based on individuals - the french are very friendly when you get to know them.)
They are not deliberately rude, and they do not, not care about you - You just don't matter to them. I think the French are seen as having a more relaxed lifestyle but I think it's because they just don't think about other people or things. They worry about themselves (and those close to them) but things like a job and people in the street seem to be just annoyances which get in the way of them enjoying themselves. I could be wrong, but that's how things come across to me.

So, as there's not much time left I'd better stop this and finish packing.

Au revoir Paris - I'll be back!