Work Christmas Dinner :)

Hello again everyone! The past few weeks have been hectic, so much has gone on. What with it being the end of the term, I’ve had what feels like a million assignments to do, as well as attending Christmas activities, and buying Christmas presents for people (which I actually still haven’t done…) there just aren’t enough hours in a day!

What did feel like a million assignments is actually in reality only 8, which although might not sound a lot, but in total consisted of around 18,000 words! I have finally managed to get 7 of them done and out of the way and fully submitted, with only one left to go. I think the main reason that I managed to finish some of them earlier than the due date was due to the library being my home-away-from-home for the past few weeks.

Anyway, I shan’t bore you any longer with my dire tales of assignments! Last week it was the Enquiry Unit’s Christmas dinner, and the leaving drinks of one of the full time members. It was actually a really fun night, and the first time I’d ever been to Giraffe. The food was a bit out there, but it was actually really tasty, and the waitress was as mad as the rest of us. We also managed to convince people to go to Sparrows afterwards, and it was a really entertaining *ahem* drunk night, especially when it started snowing inside! On Sunday, the people in my flat, and the one below, had our Christmas meal. This meant cooking a Christmas dinner for 17 people! I shall leave that one to your imagination. It was a great night and we all ate far too much food.

As you all know, I go to Starbucks far too often, but when I go there, I always get given money off vouchers by the people who work there. This means that now when I go to Starbucks, I can get my normal drink that is a pumpkin spice latte, which is normally £3.30 for a grande, for £2.80! And that’s including the extra shots of espresso I get for free. Despite what has been said about Starbucks about the whole not paying their taxes fiasco, they still are an excellent company in my opinion, and for all the while they are still around, I will continue to take my custom there.

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas, and a happy New Year, and I look forward to seeing you all again in 2013!

Lots to do!

Hello everyone, it’s me again. What a week it’s been! I had two 3000 word assignments due at the end of last week, and so spent the majority of my time working on both of those. And that’s still not the end; I still have five more to do before Christmas. I wonder why they decided to give me so much to do in the first term, and then in the second I have hardly anything. I guess they’re just mean like that, and all I can do is get on with it. I will say though that it is a great feeling when Turn It In says that the document has been submitted, a sigh of relief is needed.

In coffee related news, Starbucks finally sent me through my free drinks vouchers! Yay! This means that this week I can have two free drinks! And like it says on the voucher itself, something that is free always seems to taste better, which is true. I also got a free sample of the Eggnog Latte on my last visit, and it’s actually really nice! It’s a bit sweet, so I could only have a small one, but still is tasty.

Talking about eggnog has reminded me that Christmas is upon us, and in less than a month it’ll be Christmas, and then soon after it’s a new year! Where does the time go? At least between then and now I have two Christmas parties to attend, and two people that I need to buy secret Santa presents for. I’m really bad at buying presents for people I don’t really know, because I’m not quite sure what it is they would like, and the generic body wash just to me seems like “I think you smell, take the hint”. I know that isn’t the case, but it just seems like the easy option, which I possibly could have to take, hypocrite much.

At least I still have a little bit of money left that should tide me over until the next student loan/payday, so I’ll be able to buy those secret Santa presents, not that they’ll cost a lot of money anyway. Until next time…

My Flatmates and Twitter

Hello again everyone! So if you remember from my last blog, I mentioned how most of my flatmates now have Twitter and follow me, and I thought this was a bad thing because then I couldn’t complain about them… well, actually, this sort of worked out to my advantage, the other day I tweeted about how the bins were really irritating me because no one would take them down and I’d done it the last few times, and then about 10 minutes later, I heard someone go to the kitchen and take the bins out. Now I’m not sure that this was due to my tweeting, but I’m just going to accept that it was. I can’t believe I actually got excited about someone actually taking the bins to, what has my life even come to *weeps*.

I have also finally realised that I have not been sticking to my plan about keeping up to date with all of my assignments… I have two due next week and am only about a quarter of the way through the first one, and then after those two, I still will have another four due in before Christmas… I can just see myself not leaving my room except for lectures and water.

What also doesn’t help is that I’ve arranged to visit an old friend at her university in Liverpool for the weekend, which means that there are four days where I won’t be able to complete my work. I’m excited about going to visit her, but I’m not as excited about losing four days of doing work. This means that as soon as I’ve written this, it’s back to the books to get them done ASAP!

The good news is that I will be paid soon, which will be very helpful seeing as I have somehow managed to spend practically all of my loan on goodness knows what. It’s like last year all over again, when will I ever learn…

Work placements for next year..

I can’t believe that it’s the sixth week of the semester already! This means that we’re not that far off before we break up for Christmas. Where does time go? Over the past few weeks, the graduation ceremonies have been going on throughout Greenwich. Next thing I know, I’ll be graduating myself! I know it’s still a few years away, but the way that my first year flew buy, I’ll be 30 before I know it. Ok, so that’s a bit overdramatic, but that’s what it feels like sometimes.

In my last blog submission I mentioned how I spent most of my loan on Starbucks. Well, since then, something happened. I’m not quite sure if it’s a good or a bad thing, I’ll let you be the judge of that, but I have finally become a regular somewhere! In the Starbucks at Cutty Sark, they don’t even ask me for my name or drink anymore; they just ask if I want the usual. The first time I got my cup and ‘Michael’ was already written on the side of it, I thought to myself “this just proves that I come here too much.”

What else is new… well, I’ve been spending a lot of my evenings filling out application forms for work placement for next year. I wonder why application forms have to be so long winded and take so long to fill out. Well, actually, I do know why they are long winded; I learn that as part of my degree. It’s all about finding the best person for the role, interesting stuff huh? *Watches as tumbleweed blows past*

I think I was one of the only people in my flat to have Twitter last year, and it was great! It was a good way to vent out all the annoyances of my flatmates without them knowing because none of them had it. But this year, everyone seems to have Twitter (they all seemed to get new phones over summer) and now they follow me, so if I start talking about how messy they are or how annoying someone is, they will all know who I’m talking about. I may just have to make a separate account for venting out just that, maybe I’ll call it ‘annoying things my flat mates do’… although I’m not sure many people would be interested in that… one can only hope.

Back to my routine..

Hello again everyone! It’s been quite a while since I wrote my first blog, so I should really fill you in on what’s going on. Actually, quite a lot has happened over the past few weeks. The biggest event has been starting lectures and tutorials again. Back to the routine of waking up early! My timetable this year seems to be rather irritating as well, last year I had Thursday and Friday off which meant an extra long weekend to *cough* study *cough* where as this year, I have Wednesday only off, followed by a 9am start on a Thursday… this means no Sparrows on a Wednesday anymore *cries*. It’s not all bad though, it means that I get some peace and quiet to do some work whilst everyone else is out getting drunk.

What else has been going on then… well, I finished my role as a Clearing Assistant, and I applied and got the role working permanently in the Enquiry Unit *woo!* I also managed to get the role of Senior Events Assistant as well! I will be rolling in it come payday! Even though the semester has only just begun, I am already being inundated with deadlines and work and things I need to do. It’s a little bit overwhelming, but after I went through all the course guidebooks, I managed to make a note of all the work I need to do and when it needs to be in by. Organisation is the key at uni friends! If you’re not organised, I promise you that it will be 10x more stressful than it needs to be.

As you can probably tell from my avatar, I am a fan of coffee. I probably spend the majority of my loan in Starbucks, and you will most likely see me wandering around with a cup in my hand. A wall hanging in my room states “coffee, the most necessary of all evils”, which is such a true statement. I don’t think I’d be able to function if coffee were removed from my life.

Until next time

My first blog!

So for the past few weeks I have been working for the University of Greenwich in the Enquiry Unit during the Clearing period. It’s been pretty good actually. When I got an email earlier in the year about the vacancy, and I saw it was for Clearing, I thought it was a great opportunity for me to give something back. After all, this time last year it was me on the other end of the phone looking for a university place, so I can empathise with the callers who may be feeling a little bit stressed about the whole situation.

The past few weeks have been great fun. It’s been really nice to meet new people, and even better ones that already go to my university who I may have never have gotten to know. Not only has it been laughs and fun times, I have learnt so much about the university, information I have been able to pass on to people calling up. There is something quite satisfying about being able to help someone I think.

During the quieter periods, when there haven’t been many calls, I have been researching studying abroad for my Masters. I know it’s still a few years away, but there is no harm in doing some early research. That way, when it comes to actually applying, I will have a bit of background knowledge so it’s not as daunting.

There isn’t too long now until I go back and start my second year of university! The first year absolutely flew by! People always told me that my years at university would fly by, and I never believed them. I always thought that it would go by really slowly, but I’m already one third of the way through. Scary stuff! This is a year to really start putting my head down, it actually counts this year…