The Internet is down currently so I guess now is a good time to finally make an entry.
I know I haven't been updating like I usually do. I seem to have been neglecting this diary. It's weird, before I had net access, I wrote entries nightly, even twice a night sometimes because I needed something to do but now that I have the net, I just end up forgetting or getting carried away with something else. This is bad in most cases. Not so much for my diary, but because I know it also affects how much work I'll do for University. The Internet makes me less productive.
So, where to start? Friday last week I suppose, which is why I went home for a few days.
It felt quite nice being able to go home. It felt nice being able to get out of this horrible place and sleeping in my bedroom again. However, I knew that I probably wouldn't stay there all week because I had work to do and more importantly for me, I had no PC in my bedroom since it's here with me. Without the PC, I'm lost.
I arrived home around 5:40pm but my Mum and Gary were out. I didn't stay very long because just 30 minutes later, I was off out again, this time into town to go the pub with my friends.
I felt quite excited being able to see them all again. It's the first time I've been out with everyone since the middle of September. I planned to make the night as good as possible and was even in the mood to stay out well past closing time of the pub.
I ended up missing my train and caught the next. On my way into town, I text Dave. He said that he too was on his way into town and for me to wait for him at the station and we could walk up together.
Once I'd met him, I told him I couldn't be bothered walking all the way to the pub and that we'd get a cab instead. However, one of the main reasons I wanted to do this was so I walked past Pizza Hut.
A day or two earlier, Hannah had text me saying that she'd be in work up until 9pm. We had already arranged to meet each other on Saturday, but I wanted to see if I could see her as I walked past Pizza Hut. I saw her.
"Hold on", I said to Dave, as we walked past the place, "I just need to go in here for a minute"
"What?", he said, looking at me confused.
"Just wait there"
I went in, but by the time I did, she had already gone back in the kitchen. One of the other staff looked at me weird as I looked about for her. Unfortunately, I didn't find her. I came out again and was about to walk on when I saw her again.
"There she is", I said to Dave, "Hold on again"
I went back in and smiled at her. She looked a little startled to see me. I talked to her for a minute or so and asked her if we were still meeting the next day. She said yes. She asked why I was there and I said that I was on my way to the pub with my friends and pointed to Dave outside. He waved manically.
"So I shall see you tomorrow then?", I asked her.
"Yeah"
"Ok then", I said and hugged her.
That was the first time I had seen her since the middle of September.
I wanted to just take her with me and actually spend some time with her. Just sort things out. But of course I couldn't. I said goodbye to her and went back out to catch a cab with Dave to the pub.
"Who was that?", Dave asked.
"Hannah, you met her at my party, remember?"
"Ohh right. Very nice."
Once at the pub, Jamie, Patrick, Tori, Liam and Rob were already there. Such familiar faces. It made my mood much better seeing them. This time, I had remembered to charge my camera battery up to its capacity and started snapping photos of everyone. I needed some new pics of them!
The night was pretty good and it got better as it went on. Everyone was laughing and joking. More people turned up throughout the night including Carl, Kay, her boyfriend (I think) and Chris, one of Tori's friends. I was not happy about the fact that Jamie had started to smoke, though. I told him that it's not the best idea to get over Danielle, but of course I guess it might seem like it to him.
Tori invited me out on Sunday to watch the fireworks at a display and I happily accepted her offer.
I drank quite a number of Budweiser throughout the night. By around 11:30pm, I was rather drunk, but sober enough to text Hannah, saying that I wish she was out with me and she should come out and we could go to a club together or something. To my absolute surprise, she said ok! This was quite easily the most straight forward answer I've ever recieved from her when asking her if she wants to meet up.
As everyone was getting ready to leave the pub at around the same time, I took a few more pictures of everyone before we all walked down to the station. Unfortunately, no one was willing to stay out and go somewhere else. Everyone wanted to go home! What a role reversal. Three years ago, it was me who wanted to go home while they all headed on to somewhere else. Three years later, it's all of them who want to go home. How weird.
By now it was a little after midnight and I said goodbye to them. I went to go and wait in McDonalds for Hannah to arrive in town. By now, I was very drunk.
In McDonalds, I found my way to the counter.
"What's the biggest burger you have?", I asked. I wasn't even that hungry if I recall, but for some reason, I asked anyway and she told me. "I'll have one of those", I said.
Reading that back makes me laugh, but it's what I did.
I sat down with this rather large burger which unfortunately had lots of lettuce and onion on. I don't like all of that stuff so I tried to pick it all off but didn't really succeed. I took a bite anyway, but it tasted pretty bad to me. Hannah text me as I was eating it. She said she was almost there and to come and meet her.
I called her a few minutes later and she said she was now waiting outside the station for me so I headed over the road to meet her and there she was, dressed in black and looking sexy. I always find it hard to believe that I've actually been in bed with this girl and while everyone I've spoken to about her tells me she is such a waste of my time (and the fact is, it's true), I cannot help but keep liking her.
I hugged her tightly and said hello to her. I asked her where she wanted to go, but she said it was up to me. The only place I know if is the Krazy House, which is a bit crap really (but then, I think all clubs are) but that's where we went.
You have to remember that at this point, I was trying to sober up. I was already very drunk and trying my best to look and feel sober. This pretty much went out of the window once we were inside, since I bought Hannah a drink and myself one as well, before sitting at one of the tables and talking sporadically. I have never understood how you're supposed to have a conversation in a club when there is music blurring down your ear and I certainly don't dance. Still, it felt nice just being with her, regardless of where we were. It felt nice having my arm around her. And it felt almost like a release and relief when I pressed my lips against hers and kissed her passionately. Her lips are so soft and she knows how to kiss. Again, it's hard to just forget about someone who I like so much.
We ended up staying there until around 3am or so. I felt like I was being crap company though, since I know if she wasn't with me, she'd probably be dancing with her friends or something.
Outside, we each called a cab and waited. I wrapped my arms around her waist and just held her close to me, stroking her arms and feeling happy for the few hours I had been with her. Of course, having a gorgeous girl in your arms and knowing you can snog her face off is enough to make any guy horny and I was too. She knew it as well I think and I remember telling her to feel how horny I was as I kissed her lots (and lots) as she did so. It was a great way to end the night.
Her cab came first and I reluctantly said goodbye to her. I text her about ten minutes later, telling her she had no idea how much I wanted to have sex with her. "Oh I think I do", she replied in her text, "I felt the proof!"
I waited quite some time for my cab and got home around 4am before stumbling in and going to bed.
The next day, I realise that although I had had a good night, I had somehow managed to spent nearly �60! This is pretty bad for me. I couldn't even work out how I'd spent it! Still, what good is money if you never spend it?
I was looking forward to seeing Hannah again. She had said that although she had work, she finished at 5pm and then we could meet up. I was happy that today, I'd get to see her while I was actually sober and enjoy it more and not only that, but get to bring her back to mine for the night.
The day itself was fairly boring. The only thing I did was sit in front of the TV from around 3pm onwards watching Star Trek: Voyager and Stargate SG:1. I talked to my Mum while watching it too about various things, but she went into town around 4pm.
At around 4:30pm, Hannah text me saying that her boss had asked her to work overtime and she now wouldn't get out until 9pm. I was pretty disappointed, but I text her back saying that I'd understand if she was too tired to come here after work. Afterall, by the time she had gotten home the night before it was about 4am and she had to be up at 7am! I wouldn't blame her if she just wanted to go home and sleep.
At 8:30pm, she text me again, saying she felt dead and that she was sorry, but she was just going to go home after work. I was disappointed, but who could blame her. I asked if she wanted to meet the next day and she said she wanted to but that she had a christening to go to in the day. She said that she could meet after that though.
Gary and my Mum came home around 9pm with Chinese food and the rest of the night was spent in the living room with them both. They both went to bed around midnight, but I ended up staying up until around 4am watching mindless TV. I had nothing better to do. My Mum came downstairs in the night as I was watching TV to make a drink and I talked with her for a bit. I also asked if she fancied going to see Borat with me as I know she'd like it. Even though I'd already seen it, I wouldn't mind watching it again. She said ok and that she'd get tickets.
Sunday arrived and I once more eagerly awaited Hannah to text me, telling me what was happening. The first text of the day though was at around 3pm and it was from Tori, asking me if I was coming to the fireworks display with her, Liam and Rob. I said I wasn't sure because I was waiting for Hannah to text me to tell me what we were doing. In the end though, because I didn't get any text from Hannah, I decided to go anyway. I thought that if she did text me then I could just leave early and go and meet her instead.
I got into town around 6pm and Tori picked me up in her car before we drove to where she and Liam are living. It's not in a particularly accessible place as it's quite a distance from town, but the apartment itself is rather nice and very big. Not only that, but it's in its own little enclosure which makes it feel quite upperclass.
This was the first time I'd actually been out with Tori, Liam and Rob together. Usually it's me with Jamie or me with Dave and then I happen to meet up with those three too but it felt nice to be able to do something like this. Something different.
I text Hannah while there, asking her if she was meeting me or not. She said that her boss had called her and told her that she might be working the next day, but that he was going to call her back and tell her when. She said that if it was in the morning then she couldn't come to mine, but if it was in the afternoon then she would. She was just waiting on him calling back to sort it out. I said ok.
At 7pm, we all got into Tori's car and drove to the fireworks display. It was being held in a huge park and as you can imagine, there were a hell of a lot of people going to it. As we drove, it was so surreal to see everyone on the streets walking in the same way, as if they were being drawn to something. There was hardly a person or car going in the opposite direction.
Tori decided to park a fair way away from the park itself so we could get out fairly easy when the display had ended. From there, we walked. It wasn't that far, but again, what I found so surreal was the amount of people walking in the same direction in the dark along the streets. On any other night, the streets would be completely empty.
As we entered the park, we headed in the direction of everyone else to the spotlights and to the beat of some loud dance music that was playing until we came to a large grassy opening where there was a crowd of at least 1,000-2,000 people. It'd make a great open air club/rave and that's exactly what it felt like, as many people had flashing lights and glowsticks.
Jamie text Tori saying that he would be joining us so we headed over to the food stalls to wait for him. Unfortunately, as the fireworks started, he didn't make it to us. In addition, we had chosen to pick a bit of a crap spot to watch the fireworks as we didn't actually know where they'd be being set off from. Still, once they started, it was fun to watch what we could see. I took quite a few pictures, though my battery ended up dying due to the number of pictures I'd taken on Friday night.
The display lasted about 30 minutes and it was definitely worth seeing. It was set to music and some of the fireworks were synchronised to it really well. It climaxed with an amazing display of shooting stars that lit up the night sky above everyone. It was really nice to watch.
After the display had ended, we started to make our way out of the park. I text Hannah asking what was happening. She said the guy still had yet to call. By now it was around 8:30pm. I called her instead and spoke to her on the phone for around 10 minutes as we walked back to the car. I asked her why she couldn't just come to mine anyway, regardless of when she was in work and go to work straight from mine either in the morning or afternoon. She said she didn't know. In the end, the conversation was left at me telling her to call me when he had called her, telling her when he wanted her in work. I was pretty confident and disappointed that once again, I probably would not be seeing her that night.
Back at Tori's, I stayed there for about half an hour before Tori drove me back to the station. I thanked her and said goodbye before catching the train home. On my way, I text Hannah again asking her to just come to mine. She said she couldn't because she was still waiting for the guy to call her. I told her she can bring her damn phone with her and he can still call her. By now, it was 9:30pm anyway and the likelihood of him calling was less and less as the night went on. She said no, but that she was sorry and that she really did want to come and that she wants to prove to me that she isn't a waste of my time. Most of the time, it feels like she is. It's only one the rare occasion that things actually work out between us.
I sigh as I grew more and more frustrated texting her until I decided to just stop asking because it was too late now anyway for her to come to mine.
Back at home, it was pretty much a re-run of the night before, choosing to watch TV until early in the morning before going to bed. I felt really let down by not seeing Hannah. I had gotten my hopes up after seeing her on Friday night. I just thought that things would be better after seeing her.
The next day, I tried again to arrange to meet her but in the end, it once again didn't happen. I told her that I wanted to see her this week and she simply replied with "You will". I was not so confident.
Instead, me and my Mum went to go and watch Borat in town. Just before we did though, we met Gary in a pub and had a drink and Gary took me over the road to see what the top floor of his shop looked like and what he was transforming it into.
Currently, as I've said, my Mum and Gary are living in my house (well, my Mum's house, but you know what I mean). They own a shop in town that has three floors to it and they want to turn the top floor into an apartment and live there for the next two years at which point, it's being torn down to make way for the redevelopment of the whole area. Gary paid �100,000 for the shop but he thinks that in two years, he'll get �700,000 from the contractors who want to knock it down. In the meantime, he's turning the top floor into an apartment and I'll have a room there too. I wanted to see it, even though currently it's nothing but an empty space.
The shop itself is in what I would call a back road. It's certainly not somewhere where most of the public in town would be walking. Inside, the first floor is full of desks, chairs and couches. The second floor is full of beds, wardrobes and cupboards. The third floor however, is currently a completely empty space. There's not even any walls to divide the space up into rooms. However, it is quite big and you could easily get three bedrooms, a kitchen and two toilets built up there. Gary reckons you could get four or five bedrooms.
One of the downsides to this however is that since it's in the middle of two other buildings and since it's quite wide, there aren't any windows! Can you imagine having a bedroom without any windows? No sunlight, ever, while you're in your room? It'd be horrible. The only upside is that there's a possibility of putting skylights in instead but since the building is only going to be standing for two years, I'm not sure whether Gary will want to pay out for them. If not, I'm not looking forward to living there over next Summer.
We went back over the road to the pub, before me and my Mum headed to the cinema to watch Borat. One thing that amazes me about the audiences reaction to that movie is that it's the first time I've ever heard an audience applaud a film. Twice. Once in Chester, one in Liverpool. I thought maybe it was just a freak occurance the first time I watched it, but after watching it in Liverpool too, they did exactly the same thing. I think this is a testament to just how funny Borat is. Even my Mum found it funny.
After the film, Gary drove the three of us home. I didn't stay up too late, choosing to go to bed around 2am. I had also decided that the next day, I'd make my way back to Chester because I was getting bored at home without my PC and I also needed to do some coursework.
Before I did go back the next day, I went to see my Nan. Just before I left the house though, my Mum text me telling me she had put �40 in my coat pocket for me. I didn't understand why, but she said it was just for me. However, I chose not to take it, taking it out of my pocket and putting it back on the kitchen table with a note basically saying thanks, but no thanks.
I spent about an hour at my Nan's. I offered her the �20 I had borrowed from her, but she said she didn't want it back. I offered it a few times, but she was insistent that I keep it so I said thanks. It would have been quite easy to come back to Chester with �60 extra; �40 from my Mum and �20 from my Nan, but I chose not to. Why? Because I guess I want to prove to both myself and everyone else that I can fend for myself. I want to prove that I'm independant and that I don't need handouts, though they're definitely appreciated should I ever need them.
Once more, I text Hannah, asking if she wanted to meet me in Chester after she had finished work. She said ok and that she'd text me. I recieved no texts from her, of course.
The journey back to Chester was a reluctant one. I had begun to feel comfortable back at home and I knew that while I do enjoy University, I hate where I have to spend my time when I'm not in classes. If I had more friends and if I could socialise more with the people next door, I think I'd be happier.
At about 9:30pm, I decided to text Hannah, basically telling her I was annoyed that she hadn't even been bothered to text me and tell me if we were meeting or not. She said that she was watching a film and that she had forgotten but surely if you really wanted to see someone, you wouldn't forget something as simple as a text to tell them if you're meeting them or not? Surely if I was important to her, I would at least deserve two minutes of her time to text me? Surely?
She then got annoyed at me for assuming that she didn't care enough about me. The conversation (or rather, argument) was left at me telling her to text me at the weekend and tell me if she wanted to meet up because she had told me she didn't have work all weekend. Of course once again, I wasn't hopeful.
Wednesday night I completed some more of my work and by Thursday night, people were starting to trickle back to University including Kerry and Cat who invited me out to RBs. I said no because I didn't like it in there and I don't like clubs in general. Kerry shouted at me (on MSN) telling me I need to get out more and sitting in my room is not how I'm going to make more friends or find a girl. She's right of course, but clubbing is not the way to socialise for me either. It is for her, she loves it, but definitely not for me. Regardless, I gave in to prove my point to her, got ready and went out.
As I suspected, I got bored pretty quickly in there plus it's far too expensive. Everyone in there drinks something called VK Vodka which tastes horrible, but it's cheap. Everything I drink tastes nice, but is more expensive. I'd rather drink something I enjoy, but each bottle I buy is �3.50! Far too expensive.
Both Cat and Kerry tried their best to help me start chatting up girls in there. Like hell was that going to happen. They asked me to point out a few girls I thought were nice but I wasn't really looking. They pointed one out to me, but I just don't have the confidence to go and talk to random girls in clubs. They then tried to get me to dance with them and that wasn't going to happen either. I felt pretty stupid standing there while both of them danced. Part of me wanted to, but part of me just can't be arsed with any of it because it's not my thing at all. I prefer the pub. In addition, one thing I noticed was that the majority of guys in there don't dance. The majority aren't even on the dancefloor. That gave made me feel a little more normal. It made me feel like actually, maybe I'm not the only guy in this world who doesn't want to dance and it's just that I'm with two girls who love it that makes me feel pressured.
At midnight, I decided to go. I was bored. More than bored. Seeing the odd people kissing each other didn't help things either. It just reminded me of how difficult I have/do find it to do the same. I told Cat and Kerry I was going but they pretty much had disowned me for the night by then. I said goodbye to them both and went home.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday night were spent doing some work. I had 10 colour magazine covers to complete by Monday and although I could have easily gotten them finished earlier within the week, I had procrastinated far too much and was now under pressure to get them done. I did three on Friday, two on Saturday and five on Sunday. I was pleased with myself that I'd managed to get them finished.
As you may have guessed, Hannah did not text me over the weekend as she said she would. I'm not going to text her either.
It felt great to finally resume my classes again on Monday. It felt nice being able to do something productive and have people to talk to. Usually, my typography lesson drags on, but I was quite happy with the fact that this one seemed to go over quite smoothly. Just as I was getting ready to leave for my History of Design class, a guy asked me where the Rigg building is, as he was going to the same class as me. I said I was going there too and that I'd show him where it was. It proved to be a great chance to actually start talking to someone new. I asked for his name and he told me it was Az. Well, that's what he likes to be called anyway. He's from Wales and has quite a strong accent so understanding him was a bit of a challenge but we talked on the way to class.
The class went over extremely quickly, mainly due to the fact that it ended nearly an hour before it was supposed to. Brian actually didn't ramble on half as much as he usually does at though the lesson is supposed to finish at 6pm, at 4:45pm, he looked at his watch and was amazed at himself that he'd managed to cover lots of things in a small space of time.
At 5pm, he told us we could go.
One thing that I had really wanted to achieve in that lesson was to talk to the girl that I fancy in there and find out her name. I failed at this though, because I stayed behind for another ten minutes while Brian talked to me and a few others and she left before I did. However, I managed to find out that her name is Kathryn by looking at the register as it was being passed around. Of course when (and it is a when not an if!) I do manage to introduce myself to her, I'll ask her for her name anyway to break the ice.
After the lesson, I headed home.
Today was my Introduction to Digital Technology lesson which was a little boring, because I wasn't really sure what else to do with my mask. I've already designed it in Illustrator. However, I had a tutorial session with Kevin and he told me I need more sketchwork and more research so I'll focus on that for next week.
There wre two things that bugged me about the lesson. The first was when I first walked in and went over to the computer that I have been using for the past four or five weeks and switched it on. "Oh, sorry", a girl named Heather said to me, I'm on that one. But why? I don't understand why people can't use the same machines they use each week. If you start using different machines, it means the other person has to find a different machine too and then that means I'm using a machine that someone else is usually on and so forth. It means you mess everyone else up, which is why I always use the same computer and why most people do too.
The second thing that annoyed me was at the end of the lesson. After Kevin had left, we have a guy named Chris who takes us for the last 30 minutes or so of the lesson to teach us the basics of using Illustrator. He had loaded up a DVD of video tutorials by some American guy. The problem was that they were so incredibly simple and so boring to listen to that in the end, most people just left. I can't really blame them. The tutorial was essentially 30 minutes of taking about how to change one colour to another and his voice got really annoying to listen to. By the time I decided to leave, there were only four people left in the room and none of them were actually listening/watching the video. I felt like turning it off. Instead, I headed home.
Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning of this entry, the Internet is currently down so I've not really had much to do all night. In fact, I ended up falling asleep on my bed around 6:30pm and woke up at 9:35pm. I tried to access the net again, but no luck. I went to cook some food (burning my thumb pretty badly too) instead and I talked to Ahmit a bit but because I'd only just woke up, I wasn't in the best of moods and just found it really frustrating talking to him because there's still times he doesn't understand what I'm saying. Nor does he always understand when I tell a joke.
The main 'highlight' of conversation was Aneil. I'm sure what I'm about to say will disgust you as much as it disgusted me when Ahmit told me, but according to him, Aneil does not use toilet paper. At all. When I asked "Well what the hell does he use?", Ahmit replied, "He told me he uses his hand".
What the fuck?
According to Ahmit, Aneil uses HIS HAND to WIPE HIS ARSE. No toilet paper, just his hand. It can't fucking be true, surely. That is so fucking disgusting if it is.
After this little revelation, I parted my company from Ahmit and came back up to my room before writing this entry. It's now 1:15am and I have to be up for a 9am class tomorrow.
For some reason, I have a suspicion that the fire alarm will be set off at 6am tomorrow morning. I don't know why, but I think it'll be the perfect time for the security guards to do it. I may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong, but I just have a feeling it's going to happen. It's two days since everyone's back, everyone's settled, not expecting it. It's the perfect time in the security guard's eyes to set it off, I'm sure. We'll see if I'm right.
So, there's my entry for the past week or two. The highlights have been seeing my friends, seeing Hannah (though there's lots of disappointment after I did), seeing Borat a second time and going out to RBs when I didn't even want to. I need to have more interesting things happen in my life. I hate that my life currently still revolves around my friends at home and still pining after Hannah. I need more of a social life here but I still don't really know how to. I hate that I still don't talk to most of the people in my class and that no one makes the effort to talk to me either. I need to change this but I don't really know how.
A lot of people said that University was a time when you could completely change who you wanted to be if you wanted to. A time when no one knew you so you could act however you wanted. This hasn't been true for me though. I've just carried on being me and sometimes that isn't the best idea. I don't need to change, but I think I do need to evolve. I need to grow. I need to find new ways of socialising and having more of a life. Right now, all I have is my coursework and that's pretty much it. What kind of a life is that?
I blame living here partially. Who do I have to socialise with her? A 27 year old guy named Ahmit who doesn't understand me half of the time or 30 year old Aneil whose favourite past time is to drink bottles of whiskey three times a week.
As I've said in past entries, I wish I was living next door. At least then I'd have some people my own age to talk to and there'd be no language or culture barrier either. If I actually lived there, I know that I would have made friends with them all by now and I'd have people to talk to by living next door - even though it is right next door - I'm disconnected from that social hub. I'm an outsider. They're all really nice, but if I don't see them often then of course I'm not going to be one of them. This is why I partially blame living here for my lack of social life. I have no one to be social with.
I don't like ending my entries on a low note but this is definitely one that has to. I just can't think of anything good right now that I can look forward to. University is supposed to be fun and a great place to really start living your life. For me though, it seems to be completely the opposite.
