Seachain an duine a bhíonn ina thost

What a week.

Almost too much to write about, really. In summary:

Four nights running minibuses, involving cowboys, welfairies, Japanese tourists wanting photos, vomit, donations, water pistol fights with bouncers, the police and vast quantities of gratitude.

Two days running Serendipity. Problems on day one:

* techies turned up an hour late so when everyone turned up to their stalls there was no electricity or chairs
* Rhyl Marquee and Tent Hire turned up an hour late with a broken marquee, so had to drive back to get working poles
* O2 yelled at me because their stall wasn't big enough for a multinational corporation (*suppresses the urge to swear*)
* the security guards I'd ordered didn't turn up.

Despite all these setbacks, the actual event ran pretty smoothly. The NUS Wales people were extremely impressed which was reassuring. And day two was much better thanks to the Wales University OTC who very kindly came along early to help me set up tables, leaving me much more time to stress about other things.

There was also a day selling NUS cards (there was much displeasure when people realised they had to pay for discounts this year), a day packing goodie bags, and a day distributing goodie bags. An Exec meeting, lots of encounters with BWRPS (who need a venue for their wargames) and a Societies General Meeting. And I took minutes at the AU Captains Meeting.

But we rounded off the week in style: it was Frodo's birthday yesterday so we went out and celebrated. It was quite a lot of fun.

Isn't Ian's blog interesting at the moment? If only he wrote this much all the time. Topics this week have ranged from Nietzche and Hegel to gap years and Skype. Go read it.

Right, day one is over. Day two has begun. Seven hours of being-cheery-and-welcoming-freshers (with a hefty sprinkling of carrying stuff from cars until I realised it was stupid to offer to do that all day), five hours of herding freshers onto minibuses. With buying lots of packed lunches and trying to write a table quiz in between. Five hours of sleep later, I'm sitting in my office wondering what to do with the ten minutes before my minibus drivers arrive.

But day one seems to have gone pretty smoothly. In fact, the biggest crisis was probably that the FOD minibus electric windows stopped working halfway through the day. But we have very good RAC cover, and the RAC were on Ffridd site anyway, so that was a problem easily solved (the man came and replaced the fuse). We even had sunshine! My face is now a healthy shade of pink.

Just have to hope everything runs so smoothly the rest of the week ...

I'd like to publicly declare what a wally Sam is.

There's a three-page Freshers' feature in the Banglesey this week. The third page talks about the pastoral support you can expect at the University, and mentions that the Students' Union operates a creche for 3-month-olds to 5-year-olds.

This is funny for several reasons:

1) We don't have one.

2) The Banglesey made a very big issue of the fact that we were closing it down last year.

Now I thought that was funny enough in itself. But the third reason is best of all.

3) Sam proofread the article. And didn't notice the creche bit.

Went to a dinner for Hall Wardens last night. It was really very enjoyable. There were all sorts of University big-wigs there, and it was quite a nice feeling knowing I've now met most of them.

Sam, Frodo, Gerallt and I sat on a table with several of the ladies from Student Services as well as Meri Hughes (Pro-Vice Chancellor) and Mike Goodwin (Director of Estates). We tried very hard not to spend the meal campaigning, and it was quite enjoyable chatting about things other than work. Apparently Mike reads Sam's blog first thing every morning, but I think they haven't found mine yet. Which is nice.

Today I'm very tired. We went to the pub with the Hall Wardens after the meal. Nice to get to know them, they're such lovely people. But I'm exhausted. And my shoulders hurt. I don't feel like doing any work today. I wish Welcome Week wasn't so close.

Dad has pointed out that this coming Tuesday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. We're really quite excited here in the Union (apart from Sam, who told me to "Knob. Off. Arr."). I may even dress like a pirate for the day, although that might startle the Hall Wardens somewhat.

To get yourself in the mood, go read Buccaneer Bachelor, containing such choice gems as:

We'll spend the meal swappin' stories and lies, and by dessert I'll have ye believin' me mother were a mermaid and me father were married to her.

(thank you to Emma for showing me this)

I slept for twelve whole hours last night. It was a lovely deep sleep, although when a girl shrieked very shrilly today I remembered that I was shrieking in my dreams. Can't remember why, but it probably wasn't something fun.

Saturday has unofficially been designated lazing day. Dorothy L Sayers, sunshine, ice-cream and the patch of grass beside the pier complement each other nicely.

Sam joined me, pretending to read some document on the relationship between Universities and Students' Unions, but really chatting and reading about cars. Don't believe him when he says he works hard. Although his Estates Strategy response is very good indeed.

So I'm trying to find something to do this evening that is more energetic than reading, but everyone's too tired to do anything. In all honesty I'm probably a bit tired too, so maybe I'll just concede defeat and have a boring evening. Goodness knows I have enough excitement lined up for the next couple of weeks.

Heehee, the Advertising Standards Authority has bitchslapped Tesco in Bangor. Apparently they've been running an ad claiming they sell locally produced food.

By local they mean made in Wales. Not Gwynedd, Anglesey or Conwy. Wales is fairly big, you know. I'm very impressed that somebody noticed, and that the ASA actually did something.

Locally produced food 1 Tesco 0.

Another day, another absent Sam. Oh, the power. I'm expecting at least three phone calls checking I haven't burnt down the Union during the day. Any less and I'll be disappointed.

My 'to do' list is still enormous, but now that my confirmation letters are almost done I'm feeling dangerously in control of the situation. This is of course completely untrue. But I've been in work for nearly 45 minutes and I haven't done anything except eat a very salty bacon bap Frodo brought me.

We need more water in the water cooler. Or an open shop. Actually that'd be better; a carton of milk would be just perfect. I'm looking forward to buying a croissant in Freddy's each morning when term starts. Cereal is far too time-consuming. I'm feeling particularly profound today.

Okay okay so I'm talking a lot today. But one final thing: look atthe picture my cousin Isabelle did:



Bless!

 I spent most of this week in Leeds. I like Leeds. There's lots of shops. Shops that were fun to look at, but didn't extract any of my money from my wallet. Even in exchange for goods. There was a nice floppy hat in one of the shops but really it was too silly to spend £20 on.

It's been a fluffy sort of week, as NUS weeks are wont to be. We learnt about smelly pens, toys, the pros and cons of flipcharts, the inappropriate use of games and we socialised. A lot. I am now very tired and my liver is a little angry with me.

But it's made me all enthusiastic. I want to train lots of people to do lots of things effectively. I don't want people to not know how to do things. I can't wait to get stuck into course rep and councillor training. And I got such a kick out of using all the NSLP buzzwords when we were doing our very own practice training session: ground rules, safe space, accelerated learning, objectives, ice-breakers, co-training ...  the list goes on and on.

We also met lots of people from different places. Quite a few Unions send a group of sabbs and students on the training, which made it pretty different to Communication in Action. They lumped me, Frodo and Emma in the same group for the second two days so that we could learn how to train together (pretty sensible since that's what we'll be doing all year). The main other two Unions in our group were Hull and MEN -- what fun people! We've decided to send Sam to Hull on President Swap. Their president sounds just like Sam: sarcastic and un-PC. And it'll give us an excuse to go see them all again. Oh, and our trainer is part of the sabb team Sam has declared blogging war on. I want to join in.

Those brownies were absolutely fantastic. I used the 99% chocolate from Cocoa Bean in Limerick (mixed with half normal chocolate so it wouldn't be too overpowering) and Green & Blacks' cocoa powder, so it was immensely chocolately. In fact, they brought me so much joy that I think I'll just have to share the recipe. Nigel Slater is a wonderful man.

Oh, and even though Nigel doesn't believe in adding nuts, I added some chopped walnuts. And I tasted, and found that it was good.

A good thing about not being at Electric Picnic is that I have time to go pick blackberries. I think I'm going to go for a stroll up Bangor Mountain to find them. Maybe with some headphones. I'm being very sociable lately, so perhaps it would be good for me to have a little walk by myself.

I do love blackberries. They're probably my favourite fruit, second only to strawberries. I always find it so upsetting that the strawberry and blackberry seasons don't coincide.

Never mind. I'm going to make one of my favourite desserts: blackberry and apple crumble. Which has just reminded me that I forgot to buy apples. Pretty essential part of the dish. I'm going to have to trek back up to Morrison's.

But yes. Crumble. I love it. I love making the crumbly top, mixing the butter into the flour. I love eating the raw crumbly bit. I love picking the blackberries, I love chopping the apples. And it's just so amazingly warming and lovely when it's all baked.

I think I'm also going to make brownies. I bought walnuts and chocolate and stuff. I must find some kind of a recipe thingy. If they last past the end of the day I might even bring them to work with me.

I'm also excited because Shane and Claire have invited me around to their house (three doors down) for dinner. We're going to watch Into The West! I can't wait. I'm going to bring my Taytos and Moros. Maybe even the crumble. I feel dead special, having friends who aren't sabbatical officers.

I'm not at Electric Picnic.

Instead, I'm in my office, spending the ticket price on shoes. Or something. Generally shopping, anyway.

I've managed to get one of those coughs. I like to call them Carolan Specials. The deep, deep rattling sort of cough which apparently makes me sound like a man.

I've had it for a week or so, but I finally got around to going to the doctor on Thursday. He gave me antibiotics and this crazy cough suppressant which is supposed to help open my airways, supplementing my inhalers cos I was having difficulty holding my breath.

Crazy stuff. I took my antibiotic, this medicine and a Lemsip over lunch in Varsity, and started to shake. So I had a look at the side-effects. They also included mood swings. I went from being quite cheery and hyper to sitting in my office crying. It was really quite ridiculous. I felt quite out of it all day, just a little bit floaty.

So I don't really like that medicine. It did help my cough, but it made me feel far too weird. And I decided that it would be stupid spending the weekend at a festival in the rain. So I nipped over to Dun Laoghaire yesterday and sold my ticket. Never mind, never mind. I'm sad I'm missing it, but I really don't think I'd have enjoyed myself properly. Far too tired.