Summery Summary

So it’s been a while since I updated. Even longer than James! I have to do something about this…

I could blame my lack of updates on the fact that I was away for part of the summer. But really a) I’ve been back 2 weeks, b) I had plenty of time before that when I didn’t update, and c) I borrowed Greg’s computer enough times in the time that I was away. So I really, I have no excuse other than the fact that I’m lazy.

So let’s see, what did I do this summer?

After a short period of relaxation/boredom at my Mum’s house in Cornwall, I moved into a room in the Southampton Solent halls for 6 weeks. This was not a particularly nice place, but it was a bed, cooking/cleaning facilities, and (most importantly?) free internet. While it wasn’t particularly close to my friends, it was at least in the same area code, and I was able to get a bus or train to see them easily enough.

Unfortunately having a social life, but being a short distance from it meant that my bank balance went down rather rapidly, until it hit 0. Then it kept going down. I’ve done pretty well up to this point in managing my money. While my parents are quite generous and relatively well off, what they give me combined with my student loan does not fund any more than my rent and food. Socialising is just not covered by my budget. Fortunately, while at University, I don’t -have- much of a social life, so this isn’t a major issue, and I can always forego a meal every now and then if I have some night out planned.

So when you’re seeing a movie, going to the pub, and eating some sort of fast fast food at least once a week, as well as spending £3-5 on transport every other day, it’s a bit of a shock for my poor bank account. Of course it seems to be the theme of my blog that I talk about the bad points of a situation (happy things just don’t make good blogs I guess) I think it was money well spent. While not as eventful as my previous summer in America, I had some fun times, and it was nice to spend some time with my friends.

The big spending point of the summer was Reading Festival. Fortunately I had already paid for the £160 ticket earlier in the year, which I had funded with some short term work. For those that are either stupid or American (no, I’m not saying the 2 are the same, but most Americans I’ve spoken to think Reading Festival is something to do with books) is a 3 day music festival where you can see various popular rock bands. I could go into a whole 1000 word blog post about just this, and I intended to. However it’s a bit late for that now, as this passed over 2 weeks ago, and it’s just not cool to blog about something that long ago in the blogosphere. That, and I don’t remember half the things I wanted to say. The highlights of the weekend (for various reasons) for me would be Biffy Clyro, The Subways, The Killers, The Raconteurs, Rage against the Machine, Bloc Party, Tenacious D and Last Shadow Puppets.

Unfortunately the cost of the weekend didn’t stop at the tickets, with food and drink being about twice what you’d usually pay for it (£2 for a Coke, £3 for chips, £5 for a burger, £4 for a pint of beer/cider.. you get the picture) and I racked up about £50 on the rest of the weekend. But, considering that you’d pay £20-£50 to see any of the bands I named above individually, it’s still a bargain. I needed my fix of live music, one thing I can’t afford much these days.

So after that I spent a couple of weeks staying with various friends, which culminated in going out with a group of people for Greg’s birthday. Twice. (that reminds me, James, you owe me some amount of money still!)

When I was done there, I came back to my Mum’s house in the middle of nowhere, where I’ve been relaxing up until yesterday. As I’ve said before, it’s nice here for a short time, and the free good food is nice, but it quickly becomes boring. I’m looking forward to going back to University now actually, and perhaps another quick trip back to Southampton before then.

I did have something to do for the past 2 days at least, when I decided that it’d be a good idea to make a trip to Exeter to look around for jobs. As is easy to tell from most of my blogs, my money situation while in University has not been good. Jobs that suit students (or that are even willing to give students a chance) are rare, and at this point I’ve been pretty much willing to take anything if it means I can afford to buy anything more than cheap food. I need a laptop, I want to travel some more next year, and I’d like to be able to buy a 360 at some point, and some games for it would be good too. There’s only so much of this that I can afford through my parents savings and christmas/birthday money, so I needed a job if I wanted to be able to afford anything.

Fortunately, I found something.