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Saturday, November 25, 2006

Houseparty Night 1 - Friday

Lectures are boring, I got up on time and attended them. End of story. After my Digital Coms lecture I met Becca outside Harry Law hall and walked her to the Hovercraft terminal as she wasn't sure where it was. Stephanie came some of the way but then had to wait for a friend. The hovercraft trip was bumpy, probably because of the bad weather. Once we got off the Hovercraft we went by road to Crusader House where I started to dump stuff in my room and generally make myself at home (while offering to carry stuff in as people arrived). We played some games, most were rather "different". The funny parts of the games were some things people said. For instance, in one game it involved people moving over and maybe sitting on each other. Lizzie decided that it'd be really funny to insult me (no idea why, must be she's jealous of my legs), Helen was sitting on me so Lizzie made the all time witty comment of "I bet you never thought you'd have a woman sit on your lap". Now, Lizzie missed the fact that some time in the past while playing Honey I love you (I could find the date if push came to shove) she sat on my lap. Now, I simply replied "No, I simply never thought I'd have an attractive lady sit on me". I felt that was quite a good retort :) After games we did some worship (the band were quite loud) and then our speaker gave his first speak? Speach? Speil? WhatDoIPutHere? Shortly after that, Sarah complimented my feet ("they're not too big, not too small, just about right for guys feet"). I thought this was really nice. The fact that I had my laptop to hand meant I could record it in text, moments after the event. Most people then went down to the beach where we spun glow sticks around and I wore sun-glasses to complete the shorts and T-Shirt look. We got back, had some hot chocolate. Languages Jo (she was the one bragging about frisbees wednesday, we'll have a picture up soon) told us how Young British Men are cute while Old ones are not. She then elaborated that Older French Men are attractive while the Young ones are not. I blogged and went to bed.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Not so free (or attractive) - Thursday

Well, the earlier night and moving of the volume control paid off. Of course, it would pay off today as it was the one day of the week I had an 1100 start rather than an 0900 start. Still, I'll keep using it and report on the success. My 1100 lab went fairly well, not as well as last week but still, we made some solid progress. Afterwards we (myself and Chris) made a short trip to Tesco for lunch and then went to a three hour lab on Digital Comms. Suffice to say it's not our strong point and we were really happy with an 8/10 for the lab (on a side note, guessed what I prayed for on my way to uni...). After the lab we went home, I browsed the internet, ate a pasta/tuna mix and watched Moonraker. After that I WoAed, wrote some WoA pages for my possible teams for next world. Specifically I'm re-doing two of them and making a completely new one. I finished both the re-doos but didn't start on the new nation. If I don't blog tomorrow, it's because I'm on the Isle of Wight and the internet connection that was there last year isn't there this year. Don't expect a massively wordy blog either, I'll likely just upload 20 or so pictures and stick captions on them, better yet, I might get someone else to write the captions. Either way, it'll likely not be up to the normal standards you're so used to viewing. I also think I need some sort of a title like "CU Escort Man" or somesuch thing. I'm constantly walking ladies home (that's not a bad thing, it's nice to help people and reassuring to know they're safe) and showing them the way to places. Tomorrow I'll be showing Becca the way to the hovercraft terminal (hey, I've not a vast amount to do instead and it's not actually that much of a detour).

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Free Stuff (and some attractive company) - Wednesday

I managed to miss my Java lecture (not by much). I've now determined that I should have my volume control the other side of the room. I will be doing this tomorrow and make sure I'm in bed by midnight. So, with that in mind I got up shortly after waking up and looked at some Java stuff to make up for missing the lecture. I went to my Digital Coms lecture, it was quite boring. However, I discovered that there was a "graduates fair" on for 3rd years and that it closed at 3, sadly the Prayer Lunch would likely run long enough I'd not be able to go and filch free stuff. Luke said he'd gotten a free frisbee! Luckily for me the day got better quite fast. I met Becca and Katherine outside the Richmond building and was going to show them the way to the prayer lunch. Justin was going to be meeting some course-mates but it was called off so he walked with us. It started to rain. In short order, Becca and Katherine were complaining about wet feet. This stopped right after I said that the next person to complain would be carried. Becca now showed a remarkable degree of "Knowing how to deal with Teifion". She told Justin to complain about wet feet. True to my word I carried him, well, some of the way before we got bored waiting for the others to catch up. At the prayer lunch we prayed mostly about the Houseparty weekend, it should be really good fun. Jo had been to the Graduates Fair thingy and gotten a frisbee. I decided I'd see what I could do about going to the fair, I couldn't let Jo win... Also, everybody really liked the toffee squares, apparently they're the nicest thing there. The prayer lunch ended and Siän said that she should probably go to the fair but wasn't really feeling like it. Well, "there we go", thought I. I can go to the fair, AND help Siän by "motivating" her. After telling Siän in no uncertain terms she was going, we all headed out. Becca and Katherine walked with us as they lived just round the corner from the fair. At the fair the first thing I did was turn on my free stuff finding abilities (of course, if I saw anything the Siän might be interested in I'd tell her, but lets not forget the free stuff here). First stall was the NHS, and what'd my eye spy on it in a fraction of a second? FRISBEE! Actually, I saw the frisbees before anything else on the stand, that's how toned my sense of free stuff is. Here is what happened in my attempt to get free stuff. Me: Can I have a frisbee? NHS: You have to win one, here's a sponge ball and here's a basket ball hoop, get the ball through the hoop for a frisbee *Teifion walks around the table and puts it through the hoop by hand* NHS: No, that's cheating, you have to be behind the table Me: No problem *Teifion walks back behind the table, he then picks up the table with ease* NHS: No, you can't move the table, that's also cheating *Teifion puts the table down, then throws the ball through the hoop without any difficulty what-so-ever NHS: Well done, have a frisbee, you were allowed three goes but you only needed one Me: Can I try to win a 2nd then? I do have two goes left... NHS: No, you only get one frisbee Me: Okay, can I win one for the lady? *Teifion points to Siän *Siän looks confused, wondering why Teifion is referring to Her as if she were "with him" or in any way connected with someone so embarrassing NHS: Sure *Teifion wins a second Frisbee with an equal amount of ease as the first That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the twenty minutes I was there. Siän walked around looking for stalls that looked like they might have an opening for people studying languages, I "acquired" various pens and in total, three more frisbees! The best part of the "collection" however was as all the stands began to pack up and Siän began to get strange ideas that she was meant to leave, I walked over to a stall. On said stall was a 1.4Kg plastic tub of sherbet lemons. I simply asked if I could have them, they said "yes". Here is what I managed to get in the end. On the way back, Siän told me I was really cheeky, I promptly said that with enough cheek I could blag anything. I think Siän was a little light headed because she then said that I'd also been rather charming to the people. I'm surprised it's the first time I've been called that, I've been getting lots of free stuff since I got to Portsmouth, why would someone only mention it now? Anyhoo, I got back, WoAed and looked at more Java. Sun make some good java tutorials (not too much of a surprise seeing as they make the language), so I used them. During dinner we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I wasn't massively impressed with it but it wasn't as rubbish as some people have told me. In the evening myself and Gareth (okay, mostly Gareth) found out that for our afternoon lab tomorrow, we have some prep work, so we did that. It's 2150 and I'm blogging early to make sure I get an early night. Hopefully today was interesting enough for you all ;)

Lie In - Tuesday

Yeah, I missed the Java lecture. On the plus side, he was talking about Arrays, which I've done in other languages and even in Java, I thought he'd covered it. To be honest, I'm very glad I didn't go. In fact, the lectures today were all boring so we'll jump right to dinner. Dinner was good (no vegetables), we watched James Bond: License to Kill, I've not seen it before and I liked it quite a lot. After that I watched something with Bronx in the title which was okay but not amazing. I also WoAed, signed Lauren up for a blog. Right, early night time, missing lectures is all well and good until you actually need to know stuff. Besides, Ryan told me he'd fixed the bugs in his code and I can't let him get ahead of me in the Java project ;)

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

A most interesting day - Monday

Firstly, I went to my Java lab, nothing special there. Though the guy sitting next to me (Ryan) bragged how he had 500 lines of source code while I had 200. The key difference being his had over 100 errors and mine had none. After Java I had Formal Computing where I came very close to falling asleep! After Formal Computing I bought some food for the house and went home. At home I talked to Katharine over Skype while performing some WoA house-keeping tasks. I later collected the PA stuff with Sarah. It occoured to us as we were getting the stuff that Steve Haskew is a bit of a wuss. Sarah carried more stuff than he does (she even had a try at Mr Hefty but wisely decided not to carry him). We got the PA stuff to CU and Steve arrived not too long afterwards. Steve promptly panicked because though there were all the Uni speakers, we had no cables for them. We managed to bodge something together and it worked quite well enough for me, I get the feeling Steve wasn't impressed. Ah well. We didn't have a speaker this week, instead there was a lot more singing, prayer and both myself and Emma gave short Testimonys. Emma was baptised yesterday but I didn't find out until too late where. After the meeting myself and Sarah took the sound stuff back to Immanual Church and then went to the Pub. At the pub I discovered that Becca and Katharine very much liked Chocolate and that when combined with Jo and Hannah it could vanish quite fast. Still, there's only so much I can eat. Rob (though it might be Ross, I can never remember) and myself played many silly games with the ladies, including but not limited to me complimenting one half of them and insulting the other half and Rob reversing that role. After the pub, myself and Justin walked Becky to the Gosport ferry and then walked home ourselves, it was quite a distance but it was worth it, there were a lot of drunks around and about. I'm doing better than yesterday, I have a whole eight hours until my Java lecture, plus it's not compulsory and after the lecture there's a two hour gap. I'm tempted to lie in...

Monday, November 20, 2006

Baptism - Sunday

I awoke nicely at some time around 0700, I got up, washed, did some WoA, told Coel to get up, waited half an hour and told him to get up again. My parents then arrived, they brought with them a Baptism present of a hard copy of the ESV Bible, it's really snazzy! They also brought along my sister Cerys and a lot of Toffee Squares (a lot of them have mysteriously vanished since then...). We arrived at Church rather early which meant we got the best parking space going and had plenty of time to talk to Jonathan and Andy (who was leading the service). The Baptism itself was caught on camera, I must say that I'm really glad at the number of friends and family that came to support me. My Mum, Dad and Sister came from South Wales (they left at 0600), Pete comes from whoknowswhere and has never met me in person before, Coel came from London, some came from Reading and in general, the Church was full. I recieved a lot of cards too, it was almost like my birthday all over again! After the service, my family, some of the students and Pete went to the Thatched House/Cottage (apparently I might have the name wrong). There we had lunch and Cerys really impressed me by getting 6 sachets of mayonays (I'm training her). Actually, after the service I managed to get her to play a joke on Ceryn. Cerys went up to Ceryn and gave her an empty cup of tea saying "Can you hold this for me please", then walked off while I laughed. Huw, Coel and Pete also laughed quite a lot too. Ceryn laughed but not quite as hard. After lunch my family, me and Pete went to my house for a cup of tea before my family left. Myself, Pete and Huw then recorded a podcast before playing some Halo. I went to the Evening service at Eastney while they went to Huw's house. The service focused on the Resurrection of Christ but I was really really tired so didn't take it in very well. After the service myself and Phil served Tea and Coffee, we then washed up. At 2020 we left the building, my housemates were expecting me back by 2005 so we could go to see Casino Royale. Seeing as I was staying behind Church late for God, I figured I'd just trust God to make it all work. Unsurprisingly, when you honour God, He honours you. Phil and myself met my housemates on the way and got there in time to just about miss the titles, we somehow managed to get what I think were great seats. We were at the front but the screen was low enough my neck didn't start to ache. The film itself was really very good and to quote Coel "has restored my faith in the Bond series". Lauren was away for the weekend for her Birthday party so we sung happy birthday to her and took pictures, she had her hair done really nicely, sadly all the nice pictures of her have red-eye and I deleted iPhoto a while back because it was really annoying me with how it popped up all the time. So they'll be up some other time. In other news I have a Java lab in seven hours, time for some sleep.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

World of Arl with a difference - Saturday

I got up, knackered and aching. I managed to not fall asleep again during the WoA results. We were a man down for one half but managed to move quickly because there were fewer wars than normal. Huw came over my house to write a load of the story for WoA, then we went and picked up Pete W from the station. We had a cup of tea and then went back to the station to pick up Coel. Due to Coel being delayed, we couldn't go where we planned, so we ordered a pizza instead. The group of us (along with Pete from my house) played Halo, watched Hitch and talked about WoA. All in all it was a good day but I think I went to bed too late :(