Last night was fun. It was a night that I would call one of the best oppurtunities I've had to make some new friends so far.
The day was fairly straight forward. I went to my Introduction to Graphic Design and my Introduction to Digital Technology lessons as usual and then afterwards, I played pool with Tom. The score ended up being 19-13. I just can't catch up to him!
I went to the accommodation office from there to sort out my bond. The office has moved to a new place now and it's in such a stupid place. It's very very easy to get lost as there are no signs within the building and the building is rather big!
I saw Sarah again, the woman who I had spoken to a week or two ago about moving. She said that I needed to go to the finance office, not there.
Here's an idea - All offices in one place. It'd be so much easier!
Luckily, the finance office is on my way home so I didn't have to make any detours. I paid the �200 with my card and then it was sorted.
In the same building as the finance office is the estates office. Estates deals with everything that has gone wrong with a student's accommodation and as I've already written here, there's a hell of a lot wrong with this place. I wanted to see why they had not bothered to fix any of the problems I'd listed nearly three weeks ago and one problem that I'd notified them about five days after coming here!
The woman was nice enough to me. She was apologetic and said that they have a service level agreement with all students which says that problems must be fixed within a few days usually. A few days? I've been waiting a few weeks!
She asked me to list the problems, but I could only name one or two. I also told her about the rats, though that's a cleaning office issue. You could see her face wince a little as I told her about them.
"Yeah", I said, "Not the nicest of places to live".
I took a card with the estates office's number on it and she said to call it when I have a list of all the problems and then left, only to return to the finance office two minutes later to inquire about them overcharging me by �137 on my rent. She said they were aware of the problem and that when they had a cheque ready to refund the money to me, she'd call me on my mobile. I went home after that.
Just as I was getting home, Kerry text me, asking if I could come and help her and Cat move all of her stuff to her new home. I would have been willing to if only for the fact that I had just walked 20 minutes home and didn't really want to walk 20 minutes back as well before I'd even got home. She said ok and that it wasn't a problem, but I still felt guilty after offering to help a few days earlier.
I arrived home, ate and then went to bed until 6:30pm.
Kerry text me around then telling me to meet her at her house at 7:30pm and from there, we'd go to Cat's new house together. On the way, we stopped for cheap vodka. I don't like vodka, let alone cheap vodka. I bought it, though.
Once at Cat's new house, there were quite a few people inside and the house itself looked surprisingly nice for student accommodation. It looked like your normal home, not completely disgusting like my accommodation.
I got introduced to one or two of the six people there, though I had already met one of them, Hannah. Of the five remaining, four were guys and one was a girl who I later found out to be from Southport! It was nice finding someone at least a little close to where I live and nice when I said I was from Kirkby and she actually knew where I meant. Her name was Zoe.
Of the other guys, I can only remember three of their names. Matt, Lawrence and Chris.
Kerry made me a drink while we were both in the kitchen. Vodka and diet coke. It was nasty. The vodka smelt like paint thinner or marker pen and it didn't taste much better either.
A little while later, we ended up playing something called Ring of Fire. A pack of cards is scattered all over the floor, face down and everyone sits in a circle around them, taking it in turns to pick a card up. Each card has a different rule attached to it; if you pick up a 2, you have to drink two fingers worth of your drink. If you pick up a 8, you're allowed to go to the toilet. And so forth.
30 minutes later and I had drank three glasses of vodka and coke. I was feeling tipsy.
I'm not quite sure how or why it happened, but Matt had a forfeit for something and ended up sitting there with his pants around his ankles. He kept his boxers on but everything, was, er, falling out. Not the nicest sight for me, a straight guy! Of course, Kerry and indeed the other girls thought it was great and Kerry went so far as to take a picture of his crotch.
15 minutes later, he was totally naked and dancing in the middle of the living room.
By that time, I was too drunk to care much, and just tried my best to avoid looking at him - or any part of him - directly. Not a nice sight at all for me!
By the time everyone was ready to go to Brannigan's, we were all quite drunk and stumbled out of the house all laughing and falling over. Kerry, Zoe and one or two of the others walked quicker and left the rest of us behind to stumbled everywhere while drunk.
The thing with me, though, is that most of the time, I'm very aware that I'm drunk and if I need to, I will at least attempt to overcome it. This is because I felt very responsible for those who I was with, even though the only one I actually knew properly was Cat. Naturally, though I was drunk, I kept an eye on her and indeed everyone else to make sure they weren't about to fall off the edge of a cliff or something.
Hannah was particularly drunk to the point that she didn't really look that well. Half way to Brannigans, we stopped off at one of the guy's houses so that one or two of them could use the toilet, giving Hannah time to sit down. She looked bad and I suggested that I take her home but she said no and so did the others. In the end, we carried on.
Brannigan's was (and is always) full. Music blurring, crowds of people dancing, singing etc. It's not really my type of place. I prefer more quiet settings! Call me boring, I don't care.
We all sat down just outside the dancefloor area. Though everyone was keen to go in and start dancing, Hannah was most certainly not and again, I suggested to both her and the rest that she needed to go home. They were a bit too drunk to listen to me though and in the end, I was the one who took care of her albeit willingly because everyone else decided to go and dance.
As I said, I too was drunk, but because I knew that Hannah was feeling pretty crap, I didn't touch any more alcohol throughout the night to sober myself up so I could make sure I could sit with her and make sure she was ok. I wasn't bothered about going and dancing anyway, I was happy to sit outside the dancefloor.
Kerry and the rest arrived a little later and while they sat with Hannah for a few minutes, I went to get the both of us some water, along with a drink for Kerry. Once back though, they left her with me. I thought it was quite uncaring of them really to just leave her. I have only met her once before, yet it felt like I was showing more compassion for her than her housemates. I know that if I felt bad, I would want someone there to make sure I was ok.
Thankfully, as the night went on, she sobered up a little and had more life. Soon she was smiling again and said thank you to me for taking care of her and that she owed me a drink. "Not at all", I said.
Once she was feeling better, both her, me and everyone else went onto the dancefloor. I mostly just kind of...stood. I don't dance, even when drunk. In the background, Kerry had pulled and was now snogging the face off Matt. I was jealous. Not so much of wanting to kiss Kerry, but that she finds it so damn easy to find someone! It just reinforces how unconfident I am. It was at this point that I started to feel a bit dejected and lonely.
At around 1:30am, I thought about leaving but didn't. Eventually, we all left the dancefloor and sat outside it. I was much more aware of myself now and was feeling quite low. Depressed, sad, lonely. I needed a cuddle and a kiss from someone. Of course, there was no one willing to give me one so I just kind of sat there looking quite similar to how Hannah had looked at the beginning of the night.
Kerry was the third person to hit that stage, resting her head on Hannah's shoulder and looking like she was ready to fall asleep. The others were drunk, but able to fend for themselves.
At 1:50am, I told Hannah that I was going to go but she said that everyone was going soon so I waited and at 2am, we did, leaving Zoe, Matt and Lawrence behind.
Once out of the club, Kerry came back to life again, sporting a flashing police helmet she'd found on one of the seats in the club. It was funny to begin with, watching her run about all over the place and shout to random strangers, even going up to one and giving them a hug as he felt her arse. She also spent quite some time with her head in a police car window, talking to two officers and asking them if they wanted strip searching. But to do all of this as often as Kerry? I couldn't do it, nor would I ever want to.
Hannah, Cat and Kerry were all still quite drunk, though Hannah was almost sober. Since Kerry was still very much completely wasted and she had a 20 minute walk to get home, some of which she'd have to do on her own, I thought perhaps I should put her in a cab, but I was hopeful that Hannah and Cat would take care of her. We reached the point where I had to go a different way to them and I gave each of them a hug. Hannah thanked me again for taking care of her and then I left them to go home.
It was an interesting night. I most certainly got very drunk, but managed to reclaim my sobriety to look after the others. I met lots of new people who I will hopefully see again, too, though I do hope alcohol doesn't always have to be a requirement to have fun with them. Regardless, I'm glad that I went and I will undoubtedly be going again.
