Week 7: Experiencing Fab n Fresh

Saturday was definitely the highlight this week. It was my friend's birthday so she planned a musical-themed night out at Fab n Fresh, the weekly Guild event. Basically, Joe's Bar cranks up the volume and dims the lights for a night of dancing and general awesome times. I can not believe that that was the first time I'd been. It's just a walk away from halls so there's no need for saving a tenner for the taxi there and back and entry is only £4 with your student ID card.

In other news, the Northern Society have now planned their events for term one. Wahey! We had to send off a grant application so the Guild can partially fund the transport for two of our events as well as help us out with promotion expenditure. The deadline for that is this coming Friday but for it to be checked, with time for ammendments, Monday was the deadline. Because we'd been so busy over the weekend with personal ventures, we managed to get the email sent to the office at about half past midnight and got a reply thankfully this morning. All is good! We were even commended on how clear our descriptions were.

I'm at home this week, in Doncaster, so whilst I can report on all the goings on they won't be applicable to everyone. Might still be an interesting read.

I'm the lion!

Week 2: Trying to see it from a different perspective

First of all, I don't think I'll bother commenting on the election fiasco. The rest of the world's media has done that brilliantly and precisely (even though I still don't think my vote helped things particularly).

This week's post will be a very honest, open view on student life from the perspective of someone who doesn't go out every week or even every three weeks. I prefer a quieter night in. Last week I mentioned meeting up with friends and going for a drink at Bar One, the bar on the Vale. That was definitely what I would call is 'my territory'. Personally, I see massive clubs like Gatecrasher and so on (see, I haven't even got a wealth of experience there to mention a few more) to be places I'd go to for occasions. Perhaps that sounded a little bitter but there's a reason for this. I've mentioned in previous posts about the atmosphere in university halls. You have to be prepared for interrupted sleep on nights that are frequent to begin with then they die down and happen only twice a week then they creep up again and so on.

I have to be blunt: I don't necessarily feel a part of the community of Tennis Court. I haven't met many people yet who don't have the, shall we say, typical student mentality of work vs play. I'm working on that. I am, though, counting down the days (two months!) until I'm in my second year house and I know I won't have to worry about the kitchen being an utter disgrace. My flat failed our recent flat inspection twice. It was spotless after the second inspection because the boys realised what they were living in. When I was the last one to leave, at Easter, I'd tidied the kitchen up nicely so I'd have something nice and fresh to come back to. I then polished it up a bit when I returned. Then it got messy. It stayed messy for two weeks. This morning I decided that just wasn't acceptable any more and I cleaned up. Luckily, the boys appreciate when this happens and I buttered them up even more with some freshly baked cupcakes so hopefully the kitchen will stay at least in an acceptable state.

In a small aside - I'm loving Doctor Who right now. Apart from the episode that was on tonight. That was slightly naff. Not quite as genius as Steven Moffat's weeping angels. Watching Confidential (which is arguably my favourite of the two parts - main then behind the scenes) I began to see how the true story linked in with the writer's idea. It kind of made sense. I'm not a history buff, though, so it took a few facts and a history lesson from one of the residents for me to understand a snippet. It's a good series, though. Ok maybe that wasn't such a small aside. And I could discuss the matter further.

Adding to my waiting game, I'm also looking forward to transforming my crowded room into a whole house. The person I'm living with - my boyfriend - may not be staying with me over summer because he'd like to spend some time at home so I'll have the house to myself for however long I stay there for (I'm thinking of getting work experience here while I have a few months spare). That means I can really move in and organise my stuff. I can buy a book shelf and make a mini library corner and a desk to put my old PC on and a little exercise corner next to the TV and a work corner in my room with all my folders. Ooh, exciting! And a shoe corner. Can't forget the shoes.

The Northern Society have been on hiatus to figure a few things out and we're back to the drawing board. Hopefully there will be more interesting news to come, with that. I urge all potential freshers to look out for us at Freshers Fair.

Week 10: Seemingly Packed

I've been almost non-stop this week. Or, at least, I think I have. Last week's post was written on Monday so I've already revealed what happened that day. I'll start with Tuesday.

On Tuesday, I managed to go over-budget again by buying almost £40 worth of food. To be fair, I hadn't been food shopping in a while so I figured that I'd take that excuse to stock up. I did buy a lot of things I wasn't going to eat straight away, such as tins of chopped tomatoes (essential for student living), tomato soup (also essential) and kidney beans (as before). I was, however, being money conscious. I went round with the calculator on my phone and tried to keep track. It appears I missed one or two things because I was about £3 off but it didn't matter anyway. I had to call a taxi to cart all the stuff back to TC because it was simply too heavy to carry healthily. The taxi driver then alluded to me being a princess simply because of my name (my surname is Royle). Lovely. He got to keep the change.

As I'd promised to meet Oli at the Guild, I had to rush to put all my things away and make 'portable food' so I could avoid the grump monster that attacks me when I get hungry. It was absolutely gorgeous so sitting outside Joe's Bar sipping a glass of water and my 30 second burger (frikadillen in a burger bun/roll with pickle) was a breeze. We then moved down to Student Development in the basement to make posters for our first society event which, later, we had to alter due to circumstances I'll reveal in a bit. At ten to four we headed up to the Thomson Training Suite for the Cultural societies mini-forum.

Mini-forums are organised for societies with similar aims (there's a media mini-forum, a departmental one, an indoor activities one, etc.). The VP SAD (Vice President of Student Activities and Development) chairs the meeting and any issues are put to her (at the moment it is Emma Packham). This time round, the candidates running for Emma's job were there and presented their pitch to us. When the elections come round again, it's really important that everyone votes because the Guild is a democracy and needs the input of the students. It is run for students, after all. After the candidates had their half an hour, they left and Emma introduced the Referendum. This is only relevant to this year, I think, so I won't really say much. I can't even say if I agree or not. If you want to find more about the Referendum, there's more on the Guild website and on Facebook groups. Eventually the focus turned to the groups. We went round the table in turn reporting on the year's successes and difficulties (note: not failures). It was interesting to hear what events people were putting on and to hear that societies which have been running for a long time are still struggling with getting funding due to their small amount of members. The list of societies is, again, on the Guild website under 'Get Involved'.

As I said earlier, we had problems with our first event. We had planned to meet at Joe's Bar at 8.30pm because it's an easily accessible place but when we went down to Joe's to talk to the staff about it, they said they were hosting a Sports Night on the same day so would have to charge our members £4 for entry and would have to shift our time to 9pm. We didn't want to do that so we changed our venue to Bar One, on the Vale, and the manager was happy for us to put some posters up advertising the event. We can't say for sure how the posters have helped or hindered the promotion of the event but we have had a small increase in group members on Facebook. There's also a poster up in the TeCRA office thanks to the enthusiasm of one of the RAs who claims to be a proud Northerner.

Thursday was a bit of a low, blank day for me. I had rehearsals at 10am which meant waking up at 7am (I always leave the flat an hour before I need to be up at the Selly Oak campus and wake up two hours before I need to leave). That wasn't altogether pleasant. I think I need some sort of schedule back in my life. I may well go ahead and make one, considering I have about 7500 words to write over Easter and an exam to prepare for and the gym to go to. After 19th May, though, I'll be a free woman! That's the beauty of University: it's intense but the finishing date is earlier than your previous.

Yesterday was quite refreshing, actually, in that the morning was quite slack. I had to be in Selly Oak for 2pm so I didn't have to set my alarm, which is always good. I amused myself with the Friday Night Comedy podcast on the walk up to George Cadbury Hall which made me about twenty minutes early. That's also always good. The reason I was up there was the cueing exercise that we have to do every four weeks (minus the costume run) of Theatre Crafts. This time round it was sound. We had to go up into the sound box and were taught how to use the cueing programme then, essentially, made sound happen at the right time. Techie times!

A heart shaped slice of leek I found in my salad. How sweet.

Week 9: When will Easter arrive?

Oh boy, I've had a long day. Rehearsal with a third year, options for 2nd year meeting, student development enquiry, lecture, library, back to TC with hardly anything to eat and plenty of things to do.

There's more news on forming a Student Group (society). This week we were called in to have an informal meeting with Steve in the Student Development office to go over the basics and to give the details of all our committee members (the minimum is three... and we have three). We received a torrent of information, most of which couldn't really soak into my head at first, but SD have what they call is a 'pick and mix' which is basically just a rack full of leaflets on most frequently asked topics. I won't go into too much detail because it's something you only need to know if you fancy founding a student group or going for a committee post. We're in the process of organising our first social, which requires filling out a Risk Assessment form and doing lots of promoting.

We failed the flat inspection. Twice. After the second time, one of my flatmates was inspired to make the place spotless. I came back after a whole day out and I was absolutely amazed. Even the bin lid was clean. Upon the second fail, there was the same note with the warning of another inspection coming within 2-3 days but unfortunately they appear to have gone against this and have sent us a letter telling us to go and see the Housing People before next Friday. This is particularly frustrating and was not what I wanted to see after waking up at 8am this morning and finishing the 'out-of-flat schedule' at 6pm with inevitable grumpiness due to growing hunger. So that'll be fun.

I've had such a dull weekend, I pretty much have nothing much else to report. Oh, the quiz was awful this week. Absolutely shocking. I may write in to complain, it was that bad. This is a shocker because I adore the quiz. It wasn't the usual guy doing the presenting, though, so that did change things. And I was in a bad mood anyway.

At some point this week I will be going to Lickey Hills so I will report back on that in next week's post.

Love to your mothers.

Week 6: Northern Society confirmation and Ice Skating

Firstly, a meeting with the Guild on Friday confirmed that the Northern Society is a good idea. Our section of the meeting lasted no longer than five minutes with a simple question to answer: what do you want to do with your society? After a brief explanation, emphasising the aim to get rid of the North/South divide within home students, there was a unanimous agreement and we were given a document to give to the office in Student Development. Bish bash bosh! We were told that in about a week or two there will be a training session and start up meeting that we will have to book and attend, dates for which will be emailed to us soon. With that under our belt, we went on a search for another one or two committee members (as the minimum is three and the average is four) through Facebook in a group message. Three people replied, one of which was in mind anyway, and the decision will be made soon. The first social for the Northern Society should happen in two weeks or so. Good news, good news indeed.

In other news, after a weekend away in Sheffield to see the Winter Varsity Ice Hockey game between Hallam and Uni, a childhood want was reborn: I've always wanted to be able to ice skate, with even a very young dream to be a figure skater (this is before the hype of Dancing On Ice... in fact it was before Popstars). I knew already that there are no ice rinks in Birmingham. Ironically, the Birmingham rink was burnt down a few years ago. There is a rink in Solihull, though, which can be accessed by bus from Birmingham Moor Street. Lessons are in five week blocks at £36 plus skate hire (£2 per session). Though this seems a bit steep to me, having known a cheaper block in Doncaster which includes skate hire, Solihull Blue Ice rink do include the invitation to the extended session afterwards for free. For those who become or are already competent skaters, the University of Birmingham has an Ice Hockey society which includes access to the Birmingham Eagles, the team with players from UoB, Aston and City.

Week 3: Starting up a society

At Birmingham, there are over 160 societies so there's usually something for everyone. However, I'm a very picky person. Having spent hours looking at the variety of societies and not deciding on one that I'd like to commit to, I was ready to just concentrate on studying and procrastinating. On Wednesday, though, I was having a conversation about just going through the motions, with my boyfriend, and some words slipped out my mouth: 'let's start a society for Northerners'. Genius. As a representative of 'The North', I'd like to warn anyone else in my group that the University of Birmingham is choc-full of student from the south and abroad. I know there are some Northerners hiding in here somewhere. I found a few of them myself. My boyfriend is one. We need more! That's why we decided to start up a society for us.

We then thought of how exactly we could do that. I insisted that on our way home, because we had the revelation over a mug of hot chocolate in Starbucks on New Street, we visit the Guild reception and ask what they know about setting a society up. It was about 7pm so we didn't expect anywhere to be open but I knew that there would be someone at the reception to help. She told me that the Student Development office deal with the society and volunteering side of the Guild and it would definitely be worth asking them for more details. I'd read or been told somewhere that to start up a society you need to prove that it would be successful so a certain amount of signatures would be needed.

The following day, I went down to Student Development and they were very excited that I wanted to do this. It seems that very few people have the courage or initiative to start up a society of their own so I was praised like a Queen. I was given a form to read and fill in. The very important bit of it was that I needed 20 people to say they liked the idea of the society. I did mention to everyone I asked to sign that this did not mean they would be committing to signing up, they'd just be helping me out. There's also two pages to fill in about justifying the reason for starting the society - you have to reassure the Guild that it would not threaten their financial status or offend in any way. Also, just because the society would be aimed at people from the North of England, it doesn't mean we can cast away anyone who is not from that area. Anyone is welcome as long as they are willing to embrace Northern culture. I am making it very clear, in our advertising, that the society does not promote the North/South divide but celebrates the minority of Northerners in the University.

So far I have six of twenty signatures. That shows how few people of Northern descent there are. Admittedly, I have only approached a handful of joint honours drama students and most of the single honours crew. A group has been set up on Facebook (link below) and advertising material is in the process of production. I plan to stand outside the library at some point either tomorrow or Tuesday and ask randoms for their interest. ...if I can muster the courage. Surely I can, I've performed on stage in front of a full house before. How hard can it be? Gulp.


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