Just another Manic Monday

Holy Cross Jubilee

As you probably already know from Saturday’s entry, my sixth form college opened to past students and the general public yesterday to celebrate its twenty fifth anniversary. Since I didn’t have anything else on and was heading through Bury anyway I thought I might as well pop in, see how things were going and catch up with some of the poor people who had to teach me for two years. 🙂

I was lucky to be going into the new building just as Mr O’Hare was taking Mary Kelly and one of the other Sisters around, along with two other past students, so I got given the VIP tour (so to speak), albeit in exchange for the embarrassment of being introduced as “one of our star pupils”. The new building is pretty much what you’d expect and not too dissimilar from the rest of the college, until you get to the second floor and see the huge sports hall that is there. The facilities really are amazingly, wiping the floor with what we used to have. You have to see it for yourself to appreciate what the architect managed to fit into a relatively small space.

After looking round the new building I went off to see if I could catch up with any of my previous teachers. Walking into the maths room I ended up bumping into all the staff from that department and offered a chair right in the middle of the room, which made it feel like I was about to face the Spanish Inquisition! It was nice to catch up with people though and nearly everyone was still there, unlike Saint Gabriels (my high school) where about half the staff that were there when I was have left now. I also managed to track down the careers people, who were really pleased that I remembered them and of course the IT staff who I’m sure were “delighted” to see me again (apparently Mr Walker still checks my sites every so often and knew about Rogue Students, which was nice to hear).

I also bumped into my law teacher, Mrs Upton, on my wanderings and talked for a while about postgraduate law courses and felt a bit embarrassed again when I found out that some of the essays I wrote (which weren’t all that good in my opinion) are used as model answers for the course. I had to sneak my way into the staff room to catch up with Mr Hunt (my economics teacher); again it was nice to catch up on what had been happening in my absense.

All in all it was good to go back and see what had changed in my absense (the benches I fought for have gone, but I’ve been reassured that this is only a temporary thing) and catch up with people. It was really heartwarming that everyone remembered me and didn’t say “so, who are you then?”, because it must be difficult when over 600 people pass through the college each year (in fact more than that now as I believe the annual intake has grown to over 700). The only disappointment was that hardly anyone had turned up for the open day, and there was no one from my year or the year above/below. I think the timing of the event (a lot of people might still be at university, even if their course has finished) and holding it during the day rather than in the evening probably contributed to this.

Dungeons and Dragons

This week was rather interesting, given that we were two players down (Tom and Juliette are on holiday in Russia at the moment) and all our fighters had turned into domestic animals, albeit rather large ones. This had left Lucy and I rather worried and confused as to what to do. In the end we decided it would be best to head back to the village, hoping our three transformed companions (who we couldn’t speak to, lacking as we were in animal skills) would follow. Although Lucy, Jules and Tom managed to get back safely, my elf decided that everyone else was going the wrong way and headed off in a different direction, promptly getting lost in the middle of the forest (just ripe for picking off by a bunch of Orcs, given that I was carrying armour plate for David and also two backpacks). Thankfully I eventually realised the error of my ways and together with David’s character (a big Jack Russell that took every opportunity to jump on me affectionately and slobber its tongue over my face) we managed to go the long way round, prompting the inevitable jokes about men taking three times as long to get anywhere because they refuse to ask for directions.

On returning to the village, my character burst into the temple, by now at the point where he was swearing profusely in several different languages and with an axe to grind against Kate’s cleric (for not venturing into the forest with us and the sarcastic comments that had been ringing in his ears all the way), Lucy’s thief (for going back the right way) and David’s fighter/dog (for the overly affectionate attention he had shown on the way back). Fortunately, after amusing efforts by Kate’s cleric to feed them holy water, the cat (Tom) and duck (Jules) started to turn back to their human forms, although not before the dog had managed to jump on the temple cleric and bite his hand off.

The M&Ms I bought from Tesco on the way in went down rather well (and quickly) over the course of the evening, so perhaps I’ll bring some more next week. There should be a bit more action next time as well because hopefully everyone will be there. I can’t wait until I’m back in Manchester though, because at the moment I’m getting the tram back to Bury just as the last trains start pulling into Victoria and so it’s absolutely packed. Last night I couldn’t even get a hand on any of the bars to hold onto, so I just had to plant myself to the ground and try and keep my balance, which I somehow managed all the way to Radcliffe.

Back in Bury

I’ve decided that being stuck in Bury sucks big time. The food’s great (mainly because my cooking skills are somewhat limited in comparison to my mum, although I’m trying to pick stuff up as I’ll be by myself this year) and there’s no rent to pay, but other than that it’s as boring as hell. I can make it in for role playing, but not much else, especially during the week when you can’t get back after about 11:30pm. So I either need to find a job, go and visit people wherever they are now (which I hopefully will do at some point) or continue to sit around reading The Guardian all day, answering emails and writing letters. Hmm.