I'm meeting Todd at 4 tomorrow. I have less than 24 hours to mentally prepare myself.

This blog is going to come in either one or two parts. I'm splitting it up because otherwise it's going to be an intimidating post that I'll probably never read back on. The picture of my cosplay is there to break up the text a little. So here we go, part one.

I’d kind of forgotten about University lifestyle, and the spontaneity that comes along with the first few weeks of it before everyone has their routines and they’ve made their way through the first layer of their loan so they don’t really spend any money after that point unless it’s on food or drinks. Yeah, I do like that kind of lifestyle. I’m actually typing this on my Mac because it’s actually more useable than my PC. It keeps overheating and rage quitting on it’s own life.

But in all seriousness, I’m going to attempt to write about all the stuff that’s been going off over the past couple of weeks. I’d been meaning to blog about it since last week and I got a moment to sit down and use the computer for an extended amount of time.

So I moved on the 12th of September, after having a more than emotional leaving night in Rock City where various boy-shapes were seriously out to upset me. I was actually incredibly tired on the car ride over, and not in the mood to go dashing around town to find somewhere that did passport photos, but alas, that was what the majority of my afternoon entailed. After standing in a line to get my keys for a painful 45 minutes, I finally got my assortment of keys, and I was off to Kent Hall - my new place of residence, which is not as nice as Tyrone, my old halls. There are staples in my curtains.

I like how they organized halls this year though. I saw a lot of people who I didn’t think I’d see again, like Chris Black, Kirsty, Emma and Graham. Didn’t really know any of these people that well, but it was nice to have familiar faces around me again, because that’s what I was terrified of with the absence of Todd, and Chris leaving. It’s been pretty cool to catch up with everyone.

I guess it’s like a tradition that people from Wolverhampton University who happen to be living in halls go to Oceana on the first night in halls. I don’t know why. I hate Oceana. I went there last year on the first night and ended up with my drink spiked. I really didn’t intend on going out. Like, really didn’t intend on it. But like I said, there were people around who I knew. Chris Black is the one that I’m talking about at the moment. I went out for a smoke, and then I ran into him, and he invited me out and I wasn’t going to say no because I actually really missed him. He’d moved away from Tyrone after the first semester finished last year and I’d spoken to him like, once or something since then.

This made it so my plans of unpacking were soon out the window and we were stood in the local shop trying to locate any signs of Vodka. We found some eventually, so with that and a bottle of VS Blue, we headed back to his to pre-drink. I don’t think any really special happened until, well after Oceana. And that’s something that I’m not going to go into detail about, especially here.

I woke up rather early the next day, not in my own bed, and then had to take the walk to my room to get ready for the meeting I had to go with Ed, Luke and Cam. I ended up getting horrifically lost while I was in MA and ended up being 5 minutes late for the rather important meeting. Ed was a lot later than me as well.

It was kind of odd because when we went off for five minutes during the meeting to discuss society membership fees, Cam very calmly asked me if I wanted to get some food after we’d finished. I agreed, because I kind of remembered a conversation I had with Warren the night before about how Cam wanted to be my friend. So naturally I assumed it was something to do with that. After attempting to ditch Ed so we could go to The Royal, we contemplated the menu for a good five minutes before I decided on Vegetarian Sausage and Mash and Cam chose Scampi. Came in at about £4.40 for the meal and the drink, so I feel like I’d eat there again, purely for the prices.

So we sat down with our drinks, and I was more than a bit apprehensive about the whole thing because it was either going to have a positive outcome, or something that would make us being friends more impossible and horrible than ever imagined. But he paused for a minute and said “I just kind of wanted to say that I’m sorry about everything, and I was wondering if we can actually be friends?”

He had a look on his face that made any negative feelings I ever held onto about the situation between us just disappear. So I replied with a far-too-cheery “Yeah, of course we can.”

So over the course of that meal, a lot of stuff got cleared up. I realise that I’m over Cam now. I mean, there’s always going to be a part of me that loves him, but it’s been really squashed down now because it had to be, and it makes it easier for me to actually stay friends with him to be honest. Us being friends worked before, and just because there’s a weird situation in the middle, doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends now. I feel like I really got closure over the course of that meal. Real closure that just sort of wrapped me up in a hug and made me think that everything was going to be okay.

After that, we met up with Luke and Ed again, and went to Asda, and then I trundled off home for a well deserved lie down. After that, I ended up going to Chris’ again where we watched Coach Trip (I can’t believe he actually didn’t complain at all while he was watching it) and a bunch of documentaries because that was his preference of TV, and he got SO excited when one we started watching was narrated by David Attenborough. We hung out for the rest of the night, and he was kind enough to make me food too.

So this brings us to Tuesday, which was one of THE most exhausting days of my life. Freshers Fayre. It meant getting up at 8, walking back to my room again for the second day in a row, getting everything ready like Manga and my cosplay, my wig and such, going down to the Uni for 9:30am. Doesn’t really sound that challenging, but it was. It really was. We set up the stall, I changed into my cosplay and we realised that there were many, many technical faults with the new website. It was basically this big fat disaster. Especially regarding the anime society.

We managed to get a few people really enthusiastic about the whole club, while everything was still working against us in every possible respect. Not only did Ed give out the wrong time for Bowling to more than half the people who came to the stall, but Blandy Roflame had written the wrong web address for the forum down, and therefore made most of our promotion absolutely, horrendously and heartbreakingly pointless. I was so annoyed when I realised I’d been handing out leaflets most of the day with the wrong web address on them.

Somehow we just about managed to get through the day with very few breaks and very little accomplished at the end. But we had enough time to swing by the bowling meeting place, find a guy who was there an hour early due to Ed just not listening to me when I’d said the meeting time was 5pm and not 4pm because we needed to drop stuff off at our halls. Then we dashed back to halls, I dumped my stuff, and then with Club Elder Chris, Megan and Michael in tow, we had to hurry back to the meeting place incase anyone else had turned up stupidly early, which they didn’t. Or if they did, they must have left.

While we waited, there was a lot of fun conversation going off. I ended up talking to ‘Asscrack Andy’ who I’m just going to call Andy because he’s a pretty cool dude. I was sitting at the clock at some point, hair a mess, hood up, sunglasses on, and I look up by chance, and my heart practically leapt out of my mouth. I managed to sputter out an “Oh my God” and without really thinking about it, I got up with total intent on catching the attention of this guy. It was Todd. New Todd. New Todd who doesn’t have long hair anymore. Freaking Todd. It actually made my day.

We had a chat about Mayday Parade and stuff for a few minutes. It made my heart happy when I saw him and Chris hug each other - seriously, two of my favourite people getting along just makes me want to cry with happiness.

Anyway. We had 3 freshers there this year - Elle, Ivan and Simon. They were all really cool. We managed to spread them out over all three lanes at bowling. But before we even started to think about Bowling, I had to walk a group of about 16 people up to Bently Bridge, which was a fun job, with all the dangerous roads on duel carriage ways that don’t have crossings. I could think of things I’d rather do, but it had to be done. I had a chat with Lee where he was saying he probably wouldn’t get an anime tattoo and we got into a discussion about how he doesn’t have enough love. He said he had plenty of love, but I disagree.

Then we were at Bowling where Lee and John had to leave because Lee had a computer thing to go to, and I’m not even that sure about John, but they left after everyone took the longest time saying goodbye to them. Then it was bowling. We had the smallest team, so we finished SO early compared to everyone else, but other than that, it was fun. I lost both games, but it was cool to hang out with Ivan some more, and see more of Cam and make fun of Ed when he was wearing this massive Power Rangers helmet that he couldn’t see in, and we definitely couldn’t hear him in. I sucked at Bowling this year - Last year I managed to win a game against Krazy Kam, but not this year.

There was this amazing moment where on the last frame of the last game on our alley, Cam got a strike. So he gets another turn, and gets a double. By this point, everyone was looking at our alley, thinking “there is no way in hell he’s going to do this.” But as he threw the last ball, it looked like it might just get another strike. It was tense. Then all the pins fell over, everyone erupted into cheers for the first person in that bowling session who managed a turkey. It was an amazing anime club moment that I genuinely never want to forget.

After that, everyone went to the pub, after losing about 6 people - two of which were freshers. Somehow we managed to keep Ivan happy, and he took my place as being the longest standing Fresher, which was my thing last year. Then it was just idle chatter for the remainder of the night. Me, Megan, Chris and Cam shared a table, and they all ordered their massive food things, whereas I get mine and it’s this puny little dish with more kidney beans than Quorn Chili.

At some point in the night, I dragged Megan outside so I could smoke, and Ed stumbled outside, slurring his words and practically threw himself down in the chair. He was actually drunk from the one pear cider he’d had. It was horrendous, and awkward.

Meals all done, drinks aside we had the monumental walk back to the City Centre, where we lost people to their different places of residence, train stations, and some just actually disappeared and I have no idea where they went.

It ended up with just me and Ed, and I just wanted to go to bed because it was late by this point and I’d barely had chance to chill in 13 hours. So I got in, set my alarm for the next day, which was Walsall, and then had the first night in my own bed. It was heaven.

The next day was an even earlier start than the previous day, I just had to take a lot less with me, so I wasn’t carting around cosplays and laptops. It was actually a really fun day. It was this tiny event called Walsall Wednesday that we decided to make this monumental journey to. We didn’t really get that much interest there, to be completely honest. I think maybe 3 people came to see what was happening, so we had a lot of free time. At some point, me and Cam decided to go and get some freebies - I ended up getting a green piggy bank that Cam sacrificed for me because I was desperate to get one and he’d stolen the last one, and these two cups that show you your drinking units. And I ended up signed up to about 7 different mailing lists. Cam also gave me a spare disco ball. I was pretty happy with my haul.

So like I said, this day was incredibly uneventful. Me and Cam ended up playing Jenga and Danger Buckaroo on Ed when he fell asleep because shit was LITERALLY THAT DULL. The Christian Union were the ones who leant us the Jenga. They gave us chocolate too, they were really nice. We packed up early, and left for the bus, which we missed, then had to wait for an hour. We eventually got back to Wolverhampton and went back to Cam and Luke’s place after meeting up with Warren at some point. Then we went to Pizza Hut after I bribed Luke into driving us there because doing the walk to and from Bently Bridge two days in a row would have actually killed me.

It was a pretty chillax meal, which was great. Me and Luke ended up with childrens activity books because they had Sonic on them, and we declared that we would definitely stay in the Sonic room at Alton Towers at some point in our lives. Then me and Cam went to get tickets for the cinema to see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Then it was back to Pizza Hut to have our food, and then Ed started freaking the fuck out about the time and Cam had to actually tell him to stop freaking out and leave the waitress alone because she’d get the bill for us before the movie started. And it was annoying that he kept asking the same question about Get Involved Day, which I had answered about a million times.

Then it was movie time. The movie was just as badass the second time around. Everyone loved it - although me and Cam had both already seen it, we gushed about the film on the way back to the car. Then it was a scary ass car ride back to Lomas street. I forgot how reckless Luke’s driving can be. Then we were back, and I think I stayed at Chris’ again that night.

So then, I had to get to University about 2 hours in advance for Get Involved Day. We were basically doing a trial run of club, and we showed a ton of different anime. We spent the morning making posters, writing the forum link on MVM leaflets and setting up tables. The main event we’d planned was showing Neon Genesis Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone. It was surprisingly empty, but compared to the TCG Society, we were doing pretty well. The only people hanging out in TCG were the staff, Lee, Paul, Laughing Man, Chris and myself. And I was only hanging out there because Ed had annoyed me and my anime watching mood had completely dispersed.

Speaking of that, I had a period where I was really annoyed with Ed though, because he’d decided to do a presentation about club which I said we didn’t need to do, but he did it anyway, and made me look like a twat and I got really upset about it. But then we closed up close to four, and I dashed out of there because Ed’s stupid presentation had upset me and I didn’t want to have to walk back with him.

Somehow, I’d gained a collinder over the course of the day. I needed to drop some stuff off before we went to Cam and Luke’s place to hang out - which was the plan that came from no where as far as I can remember. I gave Paul my collinder to look after and the tramp that lives in the under pass mugged him for it. Typical. I now have no collinder.

I’m quite impressed that I managed to cram a boat load of people into my kitchen (I think about seven if I include myself - it was quite a monumental moment considering I have a tiny corridor, and a tiny room, but an okay sized kitchen.) I gave Cam a few of my eggs, so he could make pancakes, and then we went to Asda so we could buy food to cook at his. I ended up with Birdseye Vegetable Fingers and buns, and I bought Maple Syrup for Cam because he promised pancakes.

So we went back to theirs for a while. Paul cooked a mass amount of curry while I waited for an age for my vegetable fingers to be finished (they actually only take ten minutes, but I was starving) and we just hung out for the first time in what felt like ages, and it was fun. Before Paul could finish cooking, Cam had to leave to go to Jitsu which he was starting that day, so he told me that we’d hang out later and then he was gone, leaving us to exchange our stoner stories. Luke had a surprising amount. Bloody Telford-ers.

I can’t quite remember any of the details of Lee’s but I remember finding it hilarious. And I always enjoy hearing stories that make me happy inside. So we finished eating, hung out for a while, and then eventually decided to be on our way. It’s weird seeing Cam and Luke hosting in the place of Lee and Paul who don’t live in Wolverhampton anymore.

When I got home, I relaxed for a bit, took a well deserved shower and caught up on any blogs that I’d been missing until about 11 when Cam was outside. We went for a walk to near Bently Bridge. We talked about a lot of stuff. It was pretty heavy stuff, come to think of it. It’s stuff that we needed to talk about, and everything was out in the open, like it never was before. Not even when we were a couple. It’s something that is so incredibly personal to both of us that I could never share it with anyone. So I don’t intend to even attempt vaguely telling you about it.

Friday was great. It was a day where I got a lie in, and time to myself. Then I realised how terrified I was of alone time and the whole day becomes this blank spot. I’m sure something must’ve happened on this day, but I genuinely cannot remember. I think it was in the evening that day (although, this also could have been Saturday or Sunday, it’s all a jumble.) that I started really feeling lonely, and I asked if I could see Chris Black outside for a cigarette, and that ended with me sat in his room, watching him and Kris play on World of Warcraft for a very long time. There was also Total Wipeout playing the the background with lead to a discussion about Tekeshi’s Castle and how it was the pinnacle of anyone’s childhood.

I talked to Kris quite a lot that night. He disapproves of me never having completed a Zelda game in my 19 years of existence. He disapproves of my childhood life spent on The Sims. I think he may have disapproved of most of my gaming life, but I can’t really argue with that, because I’m a shite gamer.

I also played on Halo Reach for the first time, and I was the toast D:

Everyone turned in at some point, Chris told me he was going to bed, so I left - I have this problem when I never know when it’s acceptable to say you’re leaving without someone walking you to the door. So it felt like, really awkward. Then as I was leaving I scared the shit out of Kris. It was quite funny.


As a way to finish up this part of my catch up, here's a picture of Chris, and the Collinder that is now used by a tramp as a new place for people to put change.

Until then, deal with the cute.

So this is the last blog I'm going to be doing from here for a while. Tonight is the last night of my summer, and I'm going to make it a bloody good one, regardless of who isn't there, because I will have a drink for them.

I just kinda realised how hard it's going to be going back to Uni. I keep forgetting that it's like starting all over again. Chris has gone, Lee and Paul aren't going to be around, and even if they are I'll barely get to see them because of Cam, and Todd isn't moving back so I'll barely ever see him. I'm probably not going to see Megan too much because Gabriella is moving to Uni, and they're already best friends, and as for the rest of the anime club, I never saw them outside of club events anyway.

This photo was taken a little under a year ago when me and Simon first did the dock adventures. We did it again today, and it was so much fun, but it got me thinking about how much we've both changed while we've been away at University. Of course, I've really changed how I look over the past summer, but a lot in general has changed since then. We've both made such good friends, and had these life experiences, and it's weird when you think about it like that. But we took over 200 photos today, and if you look at us then, and as we are now, you'll see how obvious it is that we've changed.

With the last weekend over, I feel like I'm ambling around, just waiting to move again now. It's actually hit me a little that my summers over, and I have to go back to routine days and shopping for my own food again. I don't really think that it's a bad thing, all in all. I'm just going to miss the adventure that I've had over this summer. It's been amazing.

It makes me sad that even facebook knows I hardly speak to my dad.

Even though none of this footage is from Day 2

WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? WHY ARE YOU ALREADY HERE?