My Three Years in Lancaster

My original intention for this article was to simply recap the day of graduation itself, but as I was writing it really did get away from me. Graduation was a day of such huge significance - the end of an era, for me personally - that inevitably a veritable myriad of thoughts and memories have been raked to the surface. The article, then, now serves the dual purpose of talking about my day as a graduand, and briefly overviewing my three years at university; in my various flats and with my various flatmates. It may be self-indulgent, but hey, it's my blog!

So, to start at the start (for that it usually where things start) let us begin with freshers week; during the last week of September, 2007. I came to Lancaster with really no idea what to expect. The whole lifestyle was always going to be a bit of a shock - having only turned 18 a month before, clubs were pretty new to me and going out once a week was only just becoming routine. Luckily, living alone (or at least independently) was something I had already had to adjust to, so when I arrived I was full of nervous excitement, rather than fear. The first thing (after unpacking) was to meet my flatmates (Liam, Becci, Becki, Andy, Laura, Ben, Frankie, Lois), and shortly after my freshers reps. For the first week these guys were my only friends, along with Louise from back home and her two flatmates, Jack and Hannah. Fine by me though, everyone was pleasant enough. Our reps weren't exactly the life of the party but they did have one redeeming quality: they introduced me to Kings, perhaps the greatest game ever invented. Ever. Have a quick gander of some pictures of (young, innocent, relatively uncorrupted) me and my friends in freshers week:

Our second night of Kings!

Me and the girls.

See how I pull a weird face in both photos? I couldn't find one without me doing one really... I do that a lot. Anyway... aside from the horrific shock to the system all the alcohol brought (I was pissed after about 5 ciders then), Freshers Week passed fairly uneventfully. One episode of major significance however: Jack encouraged me to come with him to a trial session for County FC (our college football team). I was reluctant at first, I had hardly played football at a competitive level before and I knew I wasn't fantastic, but he persisted and after a while I relented... and I am so glad I did! Over the last three years County FC has been a keystone of my university experience. Back then the three captains were Terry Jepson, Chris Dormer and Chris Grace. The third years (particularly to a naive fresher like myself) were an enigma - undoubtedly the maddest people I had ever come across, anything I had ever been told to avoid at university if I wanted to get a good degree was manifested in them... so naturally, I wanted to be just like them. After a few trials (strangely having decided I was a centre back, despite never having played in that position before) I found myself playing fairly consistently for the C-Team, which was certainly fine by me. But I digress...

Christmas was interesting at university. I'd spent the previous one on my own, which wasn't very enjoyable, so it was nice to be surrounded by people on this holiday. Andy cooked us up a huge meal for dinner a few days before we left, and I experienced my first "Christmas Ball". Here are a few pictures of both:

An excellent plate full.

Dylan, Andy and myself in a downing competition. I won ^.-

Academically, first year wasn't particularly testing. I did Psychology and Universe as an Art as minors. Psychology was boring, and I didn't go to the lectures. UAAA was brilliant, they turned all the lights off and showed colourful pictures of stars; I napped a lot in these lectures. I sort of stumbled my way through first year playing a fair bit of football, doing a minimal amount of work and spending a ridiculous amount of money on drinking.

Second year was similar, but one huge change was the people. Some of the best friends I have ever made I was lucky enough to meet this year, and I was introduced to a good number of them in Freshers Week. "Our" reps (undoubtedly a better bunch than the previous year) brought the houses next door into ours, and I acted as an unofficial (and certainly less responsible) rep to them, I guess. Anyway, you know the usual freshers week story: lots of drink, dancing and hangovers.

The group.

Me and Tim

First football social of the year

Some fun highlights of the year were our Halloween party where the theme seemed to be dress like an idiot (see below for me and Owen looking particularly horrific), the football socials and bar golf. Some pictures, before I forget myself:

We dress like this all the time.

Wingman

Owen, Me and Adam doing... something, at bar golf.

I still hadn't really got the hang of going to lectures. About once every two months I'd have this big worry that I wasn't going to enough, turn up to all of them for about two days, and then slowly my attendance would drop off again. My grades weren't poor enough to panic me, though essay deadline week was always hell. In my second term, I had 6 days to write 4 essays, including research. All-nighter followed all-nighter

Third year was a little different to the previous two, in that instead of living with the girls (I had lived with Becci and Becki for two years!) I decided to live with some friends from football instead. Sharing a flat with Sonko, Eddie, Greg and Mike has certainly been an illuminating experience. Never before have I lost entire days to decade-old computer games, or been forced to play the role of a middle-eastern nation as the USA (Eddie) issues pre-emtive strikes in case I am harbouring any WMD's (Sorry; in-joke!). I met some great freshers this year too (Mitch, Sophie, Gemma, Jo to name just a few) and this really has been a reoccurring theme over my years here. I'll have to make an appearance next year as an 'old boy' to meet some more! The workload in third year has been heavier and the socials less frequent (though by no means irregular). Living away from the girls wasn't as weird as I thought it would be (I still saw Becci and the girls a few times a week) and it was nice spending so much time playing football and engaged in meaningless man-talk. One thing I did do a fair bit this year was take holidays - I was lucky enough to visit Amsterdam, Dublin and Barcelona within 3 months of each other. Rather than drag this year out with more stories of drinking, football and other such nonsense I will try and conclude by saying that although different it was just as good a year at university as any. A few highlights:

Grad Ball, with some of my many hoes.

Becci, Me, Dom and Kat at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin.

Joe, Greg, Sonko and Me preparing one of many Bins O' Death!

After my exams and results day I spent a few more care-free weeks living on campus with my friends before the inevitable... Graduation. What a strange day it was... after reluctantly shelling out £34 on robes designed to make me look as daft as possible, I and my peers acted as the centrepiece to a strangely formal ceremony, where we officially recieved our degrees. It began with a slow procession through the Great Hall, accompanied by organ music; we were then treated to an inspiring speech by the University Dean and then went up one by one as our names were called to shake hands with the Dean and make our parents proud. I simply cannot describe how serious the ceremony was - you really had to be there. The pomp and ceremony was fine though, and I bought into the seriousness of it all with a 'it's a once in a lifetime event' kind of mentality, but when the ceremony was concluded with the college officials rising and belting out the national anthem I couldn't help but snicker a little. A few photographs, hugs and stiff handshakes later, it was all over and the realisation that my time as an undergraduate really had finished set in and had to be confronted - it wasn't pleasant.

This blog has been really long and still covers only a tiny snippet of life in Lancaster. In keeping it short I have missed out loads of people (some, like Lee, who I have seen basically every day for the whole three years!) but it is nothing personal, I promise - if I did stretch to include all the great people I've known here this would be more like a book than an article! It's been an amazing three years here nonetheless. Highs (friends, football, socials, results, spending my time and the governments money on doing nothing and enjoying myself) and lows (rare moments of work, deanery disciplinarys, fights and fallings-out, debt, stress, panic); I wouldn't change any of them for all the world.

Bye Lancaster. It really has been fantastic. One last thing to remember me by,

This is Owen's butter. If you are reading this Owen, I am sorry.

Chris

Results Day

So, today is results day! Being a history student makes things a bit easier - no half modules, and everything is equally weighted. Somewhat of a concern was my second year minor subject (Psychology), which was split into two 'half-units', Social Psychology and Developmental Psychology. I always hated Dev. and as a result did no work for it all year, causing me to get a shite mark (52) in that particular module. I contacted my department, concerned that this unit would drag my overall mark down considerably and after giving them a little "personal difficulties in exam period" bullshit they agreed to waive that module and allow Social to stand as a full, independent module. This aside it really is straightforward; 8 modules totalled 524, giving an average of 65.5. That's it then - three years of my life traded against a rather average 2:1. From the looks of it, I never really threatened to get any other classification, but given my admittedly poor effort levels, I can't really complain. Transcript below:

Course	Weight	Credit	Year	Title	Grade	Exam		Other		Overall
HIST259	1.00	30	08/09	The First World War	IIi	65		71		67
HIST261	1.00	30	08/09	Consensus or Conflict?: Change and Continuity in the Culture, Society and Politics of the United States, 1789-1989	IIi	59		67		62
HIST267	1.00	30	08/09	Life at the Edge: Britain, Europe and the Colonial Experience c.1550 - c.1670	IIi	63		68		65
PSYC203	1.00	30	08/09	Social Psychology	IIi	63		68		64
HIST248	1.00	30	09/10	Men, Women and Warfare: Twentieth-Century Experiences	IIi	62		68		64
HIST300	1.00	30	09/10	Dissertation	I			70		70
HIST364i	1.00	30	09/10	'The Shock of the New': Modernity and the Modernisms of American Culture, 1877-1919	IIi	66		66		66
HIST364ii	1.00	30	09/10	F'The Shock of the New': Modernity and the Modernisms of American Culture, 1877-1919	IIi	66		67		66

The Banking Crisis

Given the snappy and surely familiar title, one could be forgiven for assuming that this is an intelligent and informed shot across the bow of the government, concerning yet another development in the fiscal, political-economic drama that has been unfolding since Lehmen Bros collapsed in 2008. In this climate, it makes more sense than anything else in fact. But it isn't.

Actually, it is an entirely personal (and probably less dramatic on a national scale) incident that concerns me, and brings the metaphorical pen to hand. I just had a phone call from Janice, ringing on behalf of Natwest, to deliver some not-so-wonderful news. My overdraft (standing at £1599.01 DR) is being recalled. Considering that I have no money and expected a good year to pay this back, I am in somewhat of a quandary. You see, it turns out that I have violated the terms and conditions of our 'agreement' somewhere along the line, giving them the right to withdraw my overdraft facility at any time. The clause they deemed me to have violated stipulates that "All student loan payments must be made into this account", and due to a mix-up with a payment made in 2008 I had had my second year's Michaelmas Term payment made into my other bank account instead. I tried to explain to Janice that this was an exception rather than the rule; was a good-faith mistake; and was made a bloody long time ago. The problem, readers, is that Janice is a heartless automaton employed by Natwest for her great advantage of having no apparent human emotions. A few dismissive "it's not my problem"'s and we are back to me having to find £1600 to fill Natwest's coffers.

With an element of desperation creeping into my speech, I try to thaw Janice's heart of ice and explain that I simply don't have any money with which to pay them back, and that rather reneging on my responsibilities, the very purpose of my gap year is to pay off any outstanding debts. Not even Cary Grant could draw an ounce of compassion from this woman, I swear. She began by saying "you should have thought about that before violating our terms and conditions" and then, ploughing through my panicked denials of intent, proceeded to deal out threats regarding my credit rating and interest rates. My only chance to save myself, apparently, is to reduce the outstanding debt by 10% in the next two business days, so looks like the parentals, Joe and Aaron are all getting an awkward and pleading phone call.

Always read the fine print guys. What will I do now? Time to relent and give Deal or No Deal? a ring methinks...

Chris

The Future

So, it turns out I am not creative. This much I had already suspected, but now it confronts me as an inescapable fact. You see, I took a test. The lovely career lady (I was assigned to a Miss Heather Tomlinson, and she really is lovely) asked me about a hundred questions to determine my 'personality characteristics', 'job and career suitability' and (I hoped) to tell me what I should do when I leave university. She concluded that:

• I am proficient 'system based' person who does well within an existing work superstructure. So basically I am good at climbing a career ladder, passing tests, learning and teaching. In a nutshell this means I am fairly boring, unlikely to rock any boats and tear away to make my millions on my own through inventing something or forming my own company; but instead I am destined to rise fairly swiftly up a corporate ladder, if money and material success is what I want.
• If I decide I don't want to sell my soul for money and power (tempting as though those outcomes may be) I could teach, promote, write or pursue further education.
• As soon as Heather mentioned writing, I started to ask my own questions. It turns out that this test has advised against any pursuit of creative expression (i.e. design, fictional writing) but at the same time recommends writing as a career choice. Baffling. To me and Heather, this implied a choice of non-fictional writing, journalism, publishing, editing or acting as a critic of some sort.

So I haven't learned much, or at least I was not really surprised by what I was told. The only thing I didn't expect was that the test seemed to think I would be bad at starting my own company, and also at writing fiction, as these are two things I have considered seriously in the past. But then again, it's only a test. A list of pre-determined questions surely don't know me as well as I know myself, and they can't really know what's best for me, can they? Maybe they can. I took the suggestions on board anyway, and have decided to pursue three of the options the 'suitability test' suggested simultaneously: I am going to continue education by doing a Masters, this time in business management in order to explore the corporate world a bit, and at the same time start to write more and hopefully get some more stuff published. A blog seems as good a place to start as any, anyway.

Chris

Gig Weekend

Hiho. This weekend was busy busy, and was basically a trip to Manchester for 2 gigs, with a trip/night out in 5th Avenue sandwiched between. What began with a hectic, last minute train ride preceeded an equally mad and last-minute style weekend, but I had a fantastic time! The two gigs I attended couldn't really have been more different. The crowds, the venue, and the type of music varied far more than I anticipated; saying that, I enjoyed both almost equally, but for different reasons! Aside from the weekend's main events, it was great seeing Rob and meeting all his housemates. This year really is an expansion of friendship groups for me, im meeting new people far quicker than I can remember them it seems! Anyhow, reviews below...

Maximo Park - Manchester Apollo - Thursday 8th October
The Apollo isn't my favourite venue, but I was not dissapointed this time. Maximo put on a great show that I'd love to see again, and the venue didn't seem to create an issue at all. The crowd was quite a mature one - average age being 18-30 - and this suited the music and setting perfectly. I found myself about 4 rows from the front, with a great view, but instead of the regular heavy jostling and sweaty crowd I was afforded a little space in which to go mad in: the fans were excited and enthusiastic, but strangely respectful.

To the music then... The concert was opened by Dutch Uncles, a manchester-based group who didn't impress all too much. Their best track was probably "Face In", but the mediocre performance was made somewhat more palatable by the lead singers terrible dancing. They were followed by Hot Club de Paris, who were on the whole much more impressive. The scouse trio were refreshingly original - my favourite track was "Hey! Housebrick", but they had a number of other good songs. They really got the crowd going, and had some good banter with the fans without being annoying - a delicate balance that certainly paid off for them in my eyes.

Enough of that though - to the main event! Maximo Park exploded onto stage with "Books from Boxes" and "Parisian Skies" before drafting in a orchestral quartet (yes, you read correctly!) to accompany them on a number of tracks from their new album. My favourite of these were "Cloud of Mystery" and "Questing, not Coasting", but to be honest it was a tough contest because they were all very impressive. It was largely a very energetic and upbeat gig (exactly what you'd expect from Maximo and Paul Smith) but it was interspersed with some really serious and moving moments; namely their self-professed ballad, "That Beating Heart" and their classic accoustic number, "Acrobat", complete with poetry. It was quite a long set, and nearly everything I wanted to see was in fact played, and they concluded with an encore of "Apply Some Pressure", "Our Velocity" and "The Kids are Sick Again" to end on an exciting high.

All in all, a great gig, allbeit quite different to the usual emokid one's I've attended in the past. I give it a 7/10.

Funeral for a Friend - Manchester Academy (2) - Saturday 10th October
All I can say about this gig was that it really suprised me. It is the sixth (I know!) time I been fortunate to see FFAF, and I thought I had got the measure of their concerts by now, but clearly not. Firstly, Matt (vocalist) managed his normal trick of looking completely different from the last time I'd seen him, or indeed, anytime previously. This time he had long hair and a shaggy beard and looked a bit like a tramp - I suspect some kind of inside joke was going on though, because 3 of the 5 looked exactly the same!

The concert was opened by Save Your Breath, and as is the norm with FFAF they had made a wise selection and picked a very capable Welsh punk/indie rock band. I expect to see SYB hit the charts in the near future! After a long while (not until after half 9!) FFAF finally made an appearence, opening with Roses for the Dead (the third time they have done this, while I have seen them perform live). Regularities seemed to stop there though - instead of playing a mixture of classic fan-favourites, new album hits and old and new singles, the Welsh quintet stated their intention to make this a "core fan" targetted gig. It was a small venue (500 tickets sold only) and the setlist to my surprise had been chosen by fans on the FFAF message boards. They played NONE of their newest album, only 1 song (Into Oblivion) from Tales~ and only 2 from Hours. Instead they played nearly all of Casually Dressed~ and a good portion of Seven Ways~, and basically thrashed out their rawest music. It was a really fast paced, passionate performance and the fans responded in kind, producing a really, really good gig. Of the six times I have seen FFAF, its a toss up for best out of this and their last intimate gig, at Academy 3 last year. I give this a 8/10.

I managed to get a video of "History"; the quality is really poor (although it does pickup somewhat after about a minute), but it's still worth watching I think:



Anyway, that's that. I decided against a review of 5th Avenue because otherwise this blog would just fill up with stories of silly things I do when im hammered; so suffice to say, it was a great night.

Chris

Freshers Fortnight

What an amazing two weeks! It's been great seeing my Liverpool friends again, meeting new people, and generally ruining my body with shit food and alcohol. Alas, it cannot last, and work/healthy living/gym etc all have to start again. Anyhow, an overview of the two weeks:

Sunday 20th September: the time for liverpool has finally arrived, and (perhaps for the first time ever?) Adam arrives early to pick me up. Naturally I have packed nothing, so I throw (mostly dirty) clothes and a pillow into a big bag and we go pickup Tom and the journey begins. As we are driving, we start chatting about some horrific holiday moments they had in Zante and the desire to be really drunk finds us all. One phone call to Tim later and it's decided - we are going out. After unloading at Tim's and meeting Adam and Tom again we head to Walkabout, which was unexpectadly big and busy. This was a great night, the highlights being the challenges - ugly man/sexy girl competitions, and then the combination of these to the delight of one fat ugly guy called John in particular. The most memorable thing though was meeting Dave Carney - a barman who had actually just graduated Lancaster and was now working in Liverpool. Despite the fact he was working he started drinking with us, giving us loads of free drinks (we reckon over £70 easy) and generally being funny.

Monday 21st September: I woke up at Tims with a terrible hangover. He went to some lectures, and I met Tom and Adam in town for lunch and a trip to the bank/shops etc. We mooched and killed time until it was drinking time again, and that started with a house party at Tim's, where I met Minas (Swedish) and Sam, who know Tim, and James (Irish) who is Adam/Tom's housemate. We played drinking games, and Tim drank a horrific pan of something which was mostly vodka - the video is on facebook. Then we hit town, and again to Concert Square, only this time in The Office, where drinks were only 90p and the music was great. Home to Tim's again, at about 4am and after some shit food, and Monday was done.

Tuesday 22nd September: This was the day the hangovers stopped. Worryingly, I havn't had one since. Tim had to go see some Norwegian girl he was sleeping with in Lancaster for the night, so Adam picked me up at lunchtime and took me and my kit to his house in Smithdown. After getting some dinner at Asda I washed all my dirty clothes and only then realised they don't have a drying machine. After adopting their house routine (Papers in the afternoon after a late start, then another nap, then pre-drinking during tea-time) I had the shite task of drying jeans and a tshirt with a hair dryer. It took forever, and was still damp after. Anyhow, the night was young and left for town, where we visited a tequila bar (Cava) to play tequila roulette: this is where we buy a group of banana tequilas and one person has to drink a chilli tequila. You don't know who it is until you've all shotted it, but you found out pretty quick! Thankfully it was Adam - his reaction was excellent. Anyway, the plan for the Razz (a shite but good nightclub, similar to the Tasch) was abandoned after realising it was Irish night in Cube, so we went there instead. The club and people were great, and the rest of the night passed in a happy drunken haze before we went back to Adam's and me to my sofa.

Wednesday 23rd September: Wake, papers, nap, food, drink. Then Tim comes round, I meet Adam's final housemate Scott, and the drinking games start. Then its off to Medication, a HUGE night out in the cream warehouses, with amazing music and cheap drinks. Not much I can say other than this was probably the best night out of the two weeks, and we were all wrecked... horrifically so. I still don't know how we got home - because the others can't remember either.

Thursday 24th September: Going home day arrives :(. Me, Adam, Tom and Tim all chill in town, before I meet my Dad about 6 o'clock. We and his girlfriend, Sheena, go for a meal at a really nice Indian restaurant. The food was great, and it was really nice to see my dad again - I really don't just see him like that enough! Sheena was great too, and this was the first time I've met her properly. Anyway, I get the last train home and then bus it to my dads, and I am finally home in my bed again at about midnight.

Friday 25th September: Uneventful, I basically just wash dirty clothes and chill with Aaron and Joe all day. I do not pack enough.

Saturday 26th September: MOVE IN DAY, finally. After a frantic start (because I lack in preparedness) mum drives us to Uni, and I move in. I do not unpack. I meet my flatmates - Danny (Sonko), Eddie, Mike and Greg who I already know from the football team, Jo and Lauran who are second years who know us, and Jade, Mitch, Jo, Charlotte and Corra who are all freshers from the UK, Canada and Germany. By 7, we are all drunk, and we go to the bar and then to the sugarhouse - great night, highlighted by Eddie dancing the way only he can, completely on his own.

Sunday 27th September: I still do not unpack. Freshers week is now underway, and life is hectic. Me and Mike help move some freshers in and become honourary kitchen reps (basically just get a tshirt and free entry to club nights for 20 minutes work, so a good trade off!). Drinking starts again at 6 in the flat, and then it's on to the bar for a "jungle theme" fancy dress night. Since we are idiots, we strip to our boxers, go into the woods, tape lots of branches and folliage to ourselves and then go to the bar dressed as trees... or something. It looks good though!

**bored, so summarising from now on...***

Monday 28th September: Unpack. Football. Shopping. Drinking. Drunk. Tim arrives. Town bar-crawl. Drunker. Dancing. Home.

Tuesday 29th September: As above, replace Town bar-crawl for LoCo.

Wednesday 30th September: Tim goes home. Movie night. Pyjamas. Bed.

Thursday 1st October: More detail on this one because it was a bit different. After waking up and getting a quick breakfast, football trials were looming at 2pm. I was very apprehensive - my bad feet (still not fixed... week 17 of 25 on a horrific waiting list at the moment...) had meant I have hardly played at all for a year, and my fitness wasn't great. Nonetheless, I looked a lot less scared than all the freshers, and I knew a lot of people already, so that gave me a boost. Introductions were made and speeches were delivered, and after much ado we went to the fields. After some light warm-up fitness we split into 8 teams for 6-a-side matches that the captains would watch to judge both potential and ability of the new guys. In our first game I was with 2 of my flatmates (Eddie and Sonko) and 3 freshers. I had a great game, setting up a few goals and not making any mistakes, and we won 14-3. In the second game I played mediocre - admittadly I don't have the fitness yet, and by this game I was already knackered. I made a few mistakes, but also had a few good runs, so in balance it went okay. After the games we played some muff, which I did good in, so all in all a good first runout for me I thought. A quick shower, and then the excitement is building for LIVERPOOL again! I catch a coach with Matt and Dom and their freshers. These guys all seem nice, especially Sophie, Sarah and Gemma, who come in later. We get to the Krazyhouse and meet Tim, and quickly convince the freshers I just mentioned + Dom to come somewhere better. We leave and go to Walkabout (No Dave Carney on bar sadly) where we pose as Liverpool med-students and manage to sneak into VIP. After walkabout we go to MoDo for cheap cocktails and dancing, and then its time for the freshers to go back. We take them to the coach with Dom, then me and Tim hit a few more bars and meet some people before heading back to his.

Friday 2nd October: Me and Tim pick up Minas and drive to Lancaster, for the final freshers night, a campus bar-crawl. Again we drink with Dom and Matt's freshers, then start the bar-crawl. A bit of drama between me and Pete (last years housemate/friend) unfolds, for which I'd later get a diciplinary hearing with the Dean for, but again, that's another story. After the bar-crawl we go to Sugar, and have a great night, before going to an after-party at Dom's house, drinking a bottle of Wine each, and passing out on her sofas.

So.... that's all for freshers fortnight. I had a great time though, and the thought that this is my last one is really depressing. Best close the blog down now though, I have some of that work I was talking about before to do... 30 pages to read and make notes on before my seminar tomorrow: eek!

Chris