The day started out as usual though, with me going to college. I was looking forward to uploading the fountain pictures. I was an hour late, but Daniel didn't say anything.
After uploading the images to the computer, I had a look through them. To be honest, most of them are pretty crap. The quality of them is really bad. My camera is better.
For the morning, I carried on with some storyboard work in the claustrophobic 1/13 and as usual, I was very, very thankful when 12pm came around and I was free to leave.
I decided to go find out some information about the nearby gym, as I desperately need to lose some weight. It annoys me these days, having a fair amount of fat on me and I'd really like to go to a gym to get rid of it. After getting some leaflets from there, I returned to college and read them in the library. Although Jamie had said that it was something like �12 a month, it was infact �199 per year. I certainly can't afford to do that. They do offer a pay as you go scheme, but there is a note underneath all the prices that says that you must purchase a membership if you want to use the gym equipment and not just things like the sports hall and climbing wall. I guess I won't be doing that.
I continued my storyboards in my afternoon lesson pretty much throughout. Bronek came in to talk to us at around 3:30pm and while I was happy to listen to what he said, he then pissed me off by telling everyone to turn their monitors off so he had everyone's attention which is fair enough for those who have a habit of continuing with their work, but when I didn't turn my monitor off, he asked me to do so, even though I was already facing him and listening. That really annoyed me. It's patronising. He treats everyone like kids.
All he came in for was to tell us that we have to buy some copies of The Guardian, because he'll be doing some work centred around it after Christmas. Of course, one sentence was in fact more like twenty minutes of talking because he digresses a hell of a lot sometimes.
I was quite glad another week of college had ended and in addition to that, I was looking forward to going out with my friends.
I came back home and ate before going out. My mum came home about 30 minutes before I went out and she had collected my phone from the Orange shop. However, they seem to of locked it again, which means I'm going to have to pay Tony another �10 to unlock it again so I can use my O2 sim card. That sucks.
I got to town 20 minutes late, but soon met up with Jamie and we walked to the AJ's together. There, we met up with Stan, Mike, Danielle, Stan's friend Aron, Mandy and her friends Jane and Laura. The pub was really busy and most of the guys were standing up because everyone had taken seats.
It was nice to be out with them. We haven't got together since Danielle's birthday which was about two months ago or something and even though I talk to Jamie and Stan in college, it's not like we can actually hang out with each other much.
For the first half of the night, I didn't really feel like drinking and only bought the drink that I did, because it gave me something to do other than just stand there looking silly.
The girls didn't stay very long. They were going somewhere else, I don't know where. That left me, Jamie, Stan, Mike and Aron talking away to each other. Well, them talking to each other at least, since even on my good days, I hardly talk much. Jamie asked if I had my camera on me, which I did, and he and the rest took some pictures of each other. You can see all of them in the archive. Two of Aron's other friends joined us after a while, Laurence and another guy and by this time, we had found somewhere to sit down properly and carry on chatting. It was a nice atmosphere.
By now it was about 10pm and Laurence and the other guy said their goodbyes. Aron was eager to go Le Bateau's, since he'd never been before, though me, Mike and Jamie didn't want to. Stan did though and at around 10:30pm, Stan and Aron left to go there, while me, Jamie and Mike stayed at AJ's. I was feeling more in the mood to drink by that point and got two shots of Aftershock. Nice stuff. Jamie and Mike cringe while drinking it, which would seem to indicate that it was really strong stuff, but I quite like it and can happily drink it without such cringe faces although admittedly, if you actually give the drink time to linger in your mouth then it does warrant some reaction.
Mike got some crisps after a while and offered me one. I had never had "Spicy Chicken" before, so I decided to go and get my own, along with more Aftershock, again, two more. By now, Jamie was most definitely drunk. You only had to look at him to see his eyes half closed with a goofy grin. Mike was relatively sober, or at least not visibily pissed. I was inbetween. I was a little light headed, but nothing much. I was quite in the mood by this point though, to get a little bit more drunk and since I had enjoyed two single Aftershocks and one double, went back to the bar to order two doubles and then I poured one into the other to make a what, a quadruple?
The look on Jamie's and Mike's face was funny. They looked at the now two thirds full glass, full of Aftershock in amazement, since they only ever get single shots of it. I picked the glass up and both Jamie and Mike said "Whoa, no! No!", telling me not to drink it with their slightly slurred speech. It was funny. Of course, I was going to drink it, now that I'd bought it and to mark the 'event', Jamie wanted to take a picture of it, which he did as I was about to drink it and then he wanted to take one after I'd just drank it to see if my reaction was any different. It wasn't, although about five seconds later, my eyes were watering. I would of gone to get another two doubles of it, but at �2.50 per two of them, I'd already spent a fair amount of money and I didn't fancy blowing every penny I had.
While talking, I said to both of them how we need to do something other than this. Something other than just sitting in a pub getting pissed.
"We should have a party or something", I said
"Yeah, where though?", Mike said, "You gonna have it at your house?"
And then the plan unfolded.
"Yeah! If you want!", I said
"Won't your mum be all.."
"Nah", Jamie interrupted, "His mum's sound!"
"Yeah, she isn't bothered", I said. "That's what we should do!"
"We could do it for New Years Eve!", Mike said
"That's a great idea!", I replied, "If everyone brought something to the party, it'd be great"
And so, there is a possiblity that I could be holding a house party for New Years Eve. Excellent.
The bar closed soon after and as the barmen were cleaning the tables, they asked us to finish up, since it was now about 11:30pm and I had completely forgot that I needed to get the last train home.
Coming out of the AJ's, I was most definitely drunk after my eight shots of Aftershock. I could feel myself walking a bit funny and definitely slurring my words. Jamie is different, he just laughs a lot and runs away from people, which is funny as hell.
Jamie and Mike asked if they could lend some money off me to buy some chips and I said sure. We then carried on walking and by now, I knew that I'd definitely missed the last train home, which meant I would be paying �10 to get home, instead of �2.10, which I'd already paid out at the beginning of the night. Jamie and Mike were afraid that they'd missed their last bus home too, and they were saying that they might have to walk instead. Of course, I wouldn't let them do that and I happily invited them back to mine to stay the night instead. Jamie was all for it, but Mike wasn't, because he was thinking about his parents being worried because he wouldn't come home and he didn't want to call them because by this time it was 12am and he didn't want to wake them up.
I tried to convince both of them to come, since I would of hated them to walk. I mean, god knows how long it'd take. At least two hours.
I managed to convince them, but Mike was wondering how they'd get home from mine and I said that I'd lend them the cab fare from mine to theirs and they could pay it back whenever. I called a cab and we waited for it. While waiting though, they both decided to go straight home instead and apparantly there was a bus that could get them home. Jamie asked if he could borrow �5 from me and I gave him it.
Danielle called Jamie while we waited for my cab, which I would now be getting in on my own. Jamie said she wanted to speak to me so I took the phone.
"Neil, make sure Jamie gets home ok"
"Yeah, I will"
"I trust you to look after him. I don't care about Mike, you can just leave him somewhere", she joked.
"But I'm pissed!"
"Not as much as Jamie is. Just make sure he gets home ok, alright?"
"Ok"
It's good to know that she looks at me as the responsible one...even if at that point, I wasn't exactly 100% in control of myself.
The cab came after a while and I asked if they were sure they'd be able to get home ok. They said yes and they went on their way. On my way home, I talked to the cab driver throughout. Unlike last time when I came home from town in a cab, I was alert enough to have a conversation with him about various stuff to pass the time and then have to pay him �10 at the end of the ride. So much money.
When I got back, there was a happy birthday banner on the front door, along with a picture of Laura when she was younger. My mum and Laura were sitting in the living. It was a mess and they looked exhausted/drunk. There was a blow up doll in the corner that my mum and Laura thought looked like Freddy Mercury.
I went up to my room and called Jamie to make sure he was ok and he was already home. I said goodbye to him and then got in bed.
A good night.
