Week 3: Keeping Busy

This week I've managed to do something every day which meant I was out of the flat or not in the mood for revising. I don't recommend that but it does mean I have a fair bit to report back on.

First of all, on Tuesday I decided to treat my boyfriend to a Big John's (Selly Oak's answer to halal KFC - with proper chips) after an exam he was dreading. Thankfully, it was a lovely day so we could eat it outside Joe's Bar (at the Guild) and enjoy the sun. Before coming to Uni, I generally didn't even think about take-away food because I always cooked it myself or my Mum would cook. My association with take-aways was (and still is, mostly) grease and fat and horrible stuff. I found Big John's, though, and treat myself to a dinner from there every few weeks. Ah and the milkshakes are gorgeous. Proper value for money!

Wednesday was insanely busy. I had to call for a committee meeting in the morning, for the Northern Society, because we needed to expand our committee and talk about a few more important things. That was really productive and we had a good discussion, coming up with many ideas both for now and for the next academic year. Then I went off to the centre to find a dress worthy of wow-ing my boyfriend as he had asked me out to dinner at Strada at the ICC in Brindley Place. I headed straight to New Look because I love their clothes and their prices are student-friendly. After spending about an hour trying on and deciding, I went up to pay and noticed they were running a limited student discount. Whipping out my NUS card, I slashed a £25 dress down to a £20 dress. Good times! On a different note, I'd reserved some dumbbells from Argos (in the Pallisades, the shopping centre attached to New Street and the Bull Ring) so I headed back to pick them up and go back to Tennis Courts to get ready. That was a silly idea. Dumbbells are heavy! I managed to get them back to my flat without any help but weighed the box - I'd been lugging about 20lbs (I weighed my weekly shop last week and that was about 30lbs altogether, too). Dinner was lovely. Strada is always a very good place to eat. The prices are not too bad and there's usually a discount voucher either online or laying around somewhere in a voucher book (about 10 got shoved through my flat door a while back so that's a lot of discounts right there!). For two main meals and a drink (I stuck with water, boyf had a coke - which is served in a posh bottle), we paid around £12. Well, when I say 'we', I mean 'he'.

Quite a few of the people on my course get involved in the Guild's many performance student groups. I've been to see them in Equus (amazing) and on Thursday I went to see Alice in Wonderland. The design of that piece was absolutely fantastic. The costumes were brilliant, the set was awesome and the use of lighting, especially to show Alice growing and shrinking, was really well thought out. Even if you're not naturally into theatre or performing, you should definitely go and see any of the many productions put on by the various performance groups. Even just to appreciate how much effort they put into them - whilst maintaining a good standard of work in their own degrees. Brilliant.

On Friday it was the End of Year Drama night out at the o2 for Propaganda. I don't really go out a lot but because this was the end of year one, I decided to make an effort and join them. I put the message out that I would provide my flat for the meeting point and we'd all go to Propaganda from there. The night was really fun and more people than I imagined turned up, which did wonders for my social esteem. I was able to let off some steam by dancing the night away to really good indie tunes and eventually getting back to my flat at about 3.30am. I'll definitely be joining the drama people for a night out again soon. It was good to see everyone again after finishing the year and not quite realising we had no more classes together until October.

This weekend has been a nice relaxing one, so far, and the only thing left to do is go to Bar One for a few games of pool and see if anyone turns up for the pub quiz. Due to exams, the quiz has been sparse for the past couple of weeks. They'll probably cancel it soon then restart it back in October. One thing I haven't indulged in is a BBQ on the Vale, which I assume is allowed because disposables are being sold in Cost Cutter and I haven't heard of anyone being told off for it, yet. That must be done before term ends completely.