Farewells, fun and food

Ah such a busy week. I will go back to just a bit before I wrote 'Frostbite and Friends', so in other words to last Thursday.

So after the Harry Potter party I slept in to about midday, and then went to Banana Club. Banana Club is something that my church runs for children aged 5-11. It was quite enjoyable, but some of the children are, naturally, difficult to handle. However, Sam, my friend, and I are always looking after the youngest group, the 5-7s. They are quite adorable. One of them asked me whether I would be his dad, and if it wasn't for the abduction charges I would have easily consented.

Friday, I think I got up late again. But it was a baking day, as the Christian Union was putting on a pudding party. However, I don't think my puddings were actually that good, but I was distracted. About 9 I went to Rachael's, my girlfriend, house (although she was already at mine) to attend a farewell party of a friend called Rishel, who was returning to India. It was really fun, and we ended up dancing in Pier (a nightclub) until about 2am.

Saturday was the annual Stable Trail at St Mikes, which is where children are lead to different scenes of the nativity. I was a Wise Man (number 1, I'd like to add). So that meant I spent 4 hours telling children the meaning of the gifts, cleaning up shredded paper that had been thrown across the side-chapel and smiling. By the end I was grumpy. As in really grumpy. Kids I'm okay with, you have to expect kids to make things that little bit more difficult for you. It's the parents that begin getting on my nerves. They're just so annoying. For one part the kids had to root through a trough of shredded paper to find parts of a star jigsaw thing. Towards the end, because the groups were so large we got about 3 of the children to do this, but naturally others would join in. What irritated me the most was that the parents encouraged their children to do this, rather than trying to keep things slightly less chaotic. Also, whilst their child decided that they would wreak havoc by littering the whole room with shredded paper, they'd just stand back. Also the parents would be quite demanding, insisting we'd attend to their child's needs whilst trying to help about 10 other children. Then one parent stood/sat/walk across/ruined the star jigsaw thing. Fools! But still, I enjoyed it, and it just goes to show that you shouldn't go dancing (or convulsing in my case) until the early house if you have to help with children and their idiots of parents the day after.

After the stable trail I went to the pudding party for about twenty minutes and then went home and slept for a full 17 hours. Yes, from 9pm until 2pm. After getting up at 2 on Sunday I went to Rachael's and then to church, where I attend two services, the main normal one and the Student Carol Service. It somehow became my role to serve the mince pies and teas etc., then order the clean up effort despite being in no way involved in what was going on. C'est la vie.

Monday, for a change I got up at 6. Monday was to be the day of the St. Mike's Christmas Ball. Yey! It was so much fun, despite the food not being fantastic. However, it was somewhat bittersweet at the end, I was really tired so wanted to go home, but also wanted to continue as this is probably the last Ball I'll attend (although there may be plans to return next year for it).

Yesterday, being Tuesday, was quite a good day. I went to a dissertation meeting with my tutor, who also happens to be the Head of Department. It was quite encouraging as she said I seemed well prepared, which was news to me. We also spoke Masters, but I shall probably discuss that in another post. However, she did say it was worth pursuing as I'm 'obviously academically gifted'. That was nice. Then I went to a Research Seminar on the reading experiences of those in the Middle ages, which was actually really interesting and dispelled a lot of myths about that period that I've adopted.

After that I went to the Links (the university's St John's Ambulance division) Christmas Meal, which was tasty and fun. After that I returned to Rachael's and we chatted.

Today, I woke up a 3am, went to the loo twice, tried to sleep some more, then tried to work and then got distracted by facebook, Stephen's post, and then writing my own. It is now 7am, and I think I need more sleep.

So, to use a salutation as a valediction,

Good morning.