I saw the new year in stylishly, having fun with my friends in the way we know best; alcohol, lolly pops, giggles. Now I have copious photos and bruises to remember it. Thanks Tom for another fabulous party which was drama free and I spent with people I actually enjoy spending time with! Thank God.
So here I am again - new year with new promises to myself I wont keep, new resolutions which will last about as long as it takes for me to put them into action.
Only I suppose this year really is new. I have new people in my life, new places and new memories. They say a year older, a year wiser and I hope so. Last year I learnt that everything in life changes - there are very few consistencies. This can be for better or for worse, but whatever it is, it wont last either. I also learnt that you can overcome anything with the right loved ones, given enough time and space. Onwards and Upwards? I’ll drink to that!

Being home really is fabulous but I have missed uni - I called a flat mate up when a favourite song of his was playing and hearing him yell “OH MY GOD ITS AMAZING!” made me realise how much I love my new friends and life. However I am looking forward to meeting up in London on the 8th for lunch and shopping, giggles and I have no doubt lots of getting lost.

I also am going to see the absolutly AMAZING Julia Nunes in concert on the 8th which I am SO EXCITED ABOUT IT I HAVE TO TYPE IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO TRY AND CONVEY MY EXCITEMENT!!!!!!!!!!!! There will be videos.

Thats all for now folks
Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

I have an early start tomorrow so I should be going to sleep, but instead I want to describe my evening - its been quite eventful!
On Friday and Saturday I was with James, which was wonderful (despite him being all ill with a horrible flu thing :( ) So this evening I was coming home on the train. A few stops before mine, I hear an allmighty screaming; the kind of screaming which is made by many people. In shock I turned around to try and work out where this was coming from and what on earth was going on! It seemed like from nowhere near 100 emo children, smelling of beer and self pity, swarmed onto the train yelling and shouting. The mob somehow got hold of the train tannoy system and began yelling useful information to the train such asRobert is a cunt or Ben is a gayboy (etc etc). Luckily, as I said it was only a few stations from mine, so I was able to quickly remove myself and come back to the safety of campus life.

Today is the birthday of one of the boys from middle floor, and so middle floor was suitably holding a party; when I arrived said boy was already very very drunk - he dived on me with a yelp of “KATHRYYYYNNN”. As usual when the lads get drunk, nakedness was eventually suggested, more specifically a shirtless lap of our halls. Me and Sophie followed the three athletes to watch them go (one was the birthday boy). Once they had set off, me and Sophie disappeared into our halls, smug grins on our faces ready to watch the horror when the trio realised they had been locked outside. Our mirth lasted the whole of about 30 seconds before Laurence came jogging up the stairs gasping “Pete [birthday boy] has fallen over, he’s hurt himself, we dunno what to do”. After a few seconds of “You better not be pissing around” me and Sophie ran off in the direction the trio had set off in, to find birthday boy and Johnny sitting on the floor. It became immediately apparent birthday boy had cut his head and there was a fair bit of blood, so Crisis Sophie and Kat took over, Sophie dealing with Pete (“Okay sweetie, can you keep looking at me whilst we work out what you did here! Do you want a shirt?”) whilst I called the internal emergency line. To my news that “My friend who is quite drunk has fallen over and is bleeding from his head” the response I got was “and what is your name….and is that with a C or a K….” I became slightly frustrated with this - I just wanted to know someone with some medical training was heading our way. Apparently the paperwork had to come first…
Finally someone arrived and Pete was taken to hospital (much to his disgust. On being asked if he wanted to go, he said No.When told that he was going, his response was “When will I be back” - what a hardcore!)

So that drama over, it seemed all that was left was to go to bed; oh no no no. From bottom floor I heard the guitar being played, and I came down the stairs to something of a miniature spontaneous concert going on, with one of the boys playing classics such as wonderwall and when September ends. It was really quite special - we swayed and everything.

Okay, now to sleep
Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

It seems the winds of change truly are blowing. Long may this continue and I hope Obama truly does fulfil the promises he has made.

***

In other news:
Yesterday I was chatting away to sophie on our internal phones (never mind that she’s just down the corridor :P ) when I heard Laurence shouting “FIRE!! FIRE!” to which my response was “Oh for fuck sake!”, because me with little faith believed this to be a poor poor joke, and I was just about to go out and tell them as such. However the dreaded fire alarm began to shrill, sending shock waves through my body as I grabbed my keys and shoes, dived out my room and headed down the corridor. On my way out I met Helene, and we walked together ; before we had reached the door to the kitchen Helene grabbed my arm and looked at me in horror
“SHIT! My chips!”
We jogged passed the kitchen, and I glanced in the window in the door to see the room filled with smoke. We sped up, everyone from our floor shouting “GET OUT! ITS A REAL FIRE! GET OUT!”
Outside we all huddled, most people grumbling, Helene grinning nervously, Sophie panicking about her essay which was on her bed in her room, which is next to the kitchen. I just shook a lot, mostly out of adrenaline and some out of cold. We waited for a while, before the warden called us over with a tin of charred embers still glowing.
Luckily the boys had come back from hockey about an hour early (Laurence tried to use the fire blanket but failed and Johnny set off the alarms; our heroes :P) - we decided not to think about the results had the chips been left for an hour more
So now we have no oven.

All’s well that ends well

Lots of Love
Kat
xxx

I handed in my first essay last Monday - one for the ‘biological bases of psychology’ unit. It made me want to cry and/or kill someone. I also found myself writing the last part on the Monday morning (it was due by 4pm) because I had spent Sunday night not writing my essay but being involved in fishy goings on.
One of my flat mates, Harry, decided to buy about 5 whole fish from the fishmonger because they were very cheap (total = £5). So naturally when he came home and unwrapped one, the idea came about that we slap Harry (because he bought it after all) with the fish, and so the story began. The slapping of harry progressed and the idea came about to head down to middle floor and get one of them, and so down the boys went, slapped someone and threw the fish in after running back up. The victim from downstairs came back upstairs with the fish and proceeded to rub it all over Harry’s door. Forgiveness was quick however, when the idea to double team and get bottom floor was proposed. Again, down the stairs went the boys, fish in hand and some poor unfortunate soul had a fish thrown at them once more.
It would have been logical at this point to stop - should bottom floor have wanted too they could have evened out the score and all would have been well. However it seems that my floor is not logical and the lure of further fish pranks was too great! A second fish was cut in half and string was tied to the head end, with a note curled in the mouth which read “with love xxx”. The plan was simple - we swing the fish into the window of bottom floor from middle floor and at the same time, throw the tail of the fish in from the ground. The execution was perfect (well, minus the minor hiccough of me ending up with my fingers being slammed in the hinge of the window, twice, much to my discomfort and which ended up with me having to sit with frozen peas on my poor fingers for half an hour and resulted in swellings. You can hear the screams at the end of the video but I think I’ll edit those off)
Watch it here

Only problem is now, bottom floor kind of hate middle and top floor, and are apparently plotting revenge; and I’m thinking its gonna be more than just nicking our chairs.

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

I just finished the book Looking for Alaska by the author and youtube sensation John Green. It is fantastic; a book of last words, first loves, lasting questions and final goodbyes.
One such question posed by a character is:

“Islam, Christianity and Buddhism each have founder figures - Muhammad, Jesus and the Buddha respectively. And in thinking about these founder figures, I believe we must conclude that each brought a message of radical hope. — so this is the question I leave you with — what is your cause for hope?” - Page 256

It is this last bit which I was drawn too; what is your cause for hope? In this world it would appear there is very little cause for hope. The giants of famine, poverty, war and disease seem to impend far too high for the human imagination to surmount and yet if this were true, nothing would ever be achieved and society would not function in the way it does today and so for me, that is one cause for hope – that right now there is some form of functionality to society and people do seem to be awfully resilient little buggers. We survive because we must.
I also take hope from things I experience; on the tube when I was travelling home at the weekend I saw a man give up his seat for a woman for no other reason other than he just let her sit down instead of him. These random acts of kindness give me hope that these individuals will be able to keep some light shining in the darkest hour of history; if and when that should come.
I take hope that people can write books which make me cry; whilst people can make words create physical reactions, we’re okay.
I take hope from the warmth and kindness I experience everyday from my friends.
My cause for hope is that there are good people in the world, and ultimately good must always triumph over evil just as we must survive.

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

It seems the boys in my flat want to make some money. And they have a few plans on how to go about this and how to achieve what Will called thousand-aire status.
The first of these is a condom delivery service, where by they sell condoms for around 50p each. Yes it had been pointed out that if you got to the Health Clinic you can get a whole strip of them for free and its very much cheeper from vending machines which can be found up and down the country in almost every pub, bar and club going. However, they appear to be undaunted and have spent £40 on condoms from Durex. At least if their plan fails we dont need to worry about them running out of protection for sometime.
Their second plan is a little better - a bar/club crawl. They sell Tshirts and people get merry - everyone is happy.
So far their money making schemes arent hurting anyone, and it certainly provides entertainment for the rest of them. I have no doubt there will be other crazy schemes; Will seems full of them and if he persues them all with the same energy then who knows where he could end up one day - hes promised us that should he ever get rich he’s going to mail us all a condom with a note to the effect “SO THERE” and then bill us for the time.

Such is my life
Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

This weekend has been a bit freaking awesome. I spent from friday afternoon till sunday afternoon with James in Portsmouth where he showed me the sights of his new home. Turns out Portsmouth in October is freezing cold and very very wingy - I was aware of neither factor and didn’t take a coat, and so ended up freezing cold and wet. A lot of the time. Especially when what started out as a small jaunt to find a quiet pub in Gunwarf quay turned into an epic battle against gale force winds; Kat was suitably unimpressed and ended up looking like a drowned rat.
However, all in all a fantastic time was had and it was really really really cool to see James again :) although it made me very sad to say goodbye.
However when I was in Portsmouth I did end up missing the people in Surrey and this for me was a positive - it showed me I made the right choice and I’ve found people whom I can belong to. It was great to get a facebook wall post from Sophie saying she missed me - it made me feel loved and wanted :D YAY

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

P.s I know the windy city isnt actually Portsmouth

So between very indepth conversations about giving birth, strengthening your vaginal muscles with various gadgets and gizmos, and theories on what the boys here would do if they got a girl pregnant (one is running to Africa, the other is changing his name and the third would “Just punch her really hard in the stomach” I seem to be surviving the uni experience. If I’m honest I havn’t enjoyed every minute - I’ve been quite homesick at times and I’m finding all this new stuff bewildering but I think thats pretty much to be expected and I’m hoping that I’ll settle eventually.

Last night me and my flatmates decided we’d give westwood (who was DJing at the oncampus club, Rubix) a miss so we played numerous games of cheat and then, Sophie said that she wanted to be pushed down our long corridor on the wheely swivvely chairs we have, so I shoved her out of the kitchen and onto one but it was then decided that Harry, one of the two boys who had stayed in (poor boy had broken a tooth and possibly mildly fractured his jaw, although that doesnt seem so likely anymore, and so he cant drink for the next 5 days whilst hes on painkillers and antibiotics and his face was swolen up) would be able to push faster, so he ran her down the corridor whilst Sophie screamed bloody murder! Then everyone decided that it would be funnier if they did it to me (because everything is funnyer with short people apparantly) and so I duly careerd down the corridor twice (once on video). We stopped on the second time because I was nearly slammed into the doors that we went through and the windows at the end of the corridor. Oh dear god I’m not going to survive long!

On another note, I need things for my pin board! Its looking very sad and empty right now with just a few little nicknacks and my timetable.

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxxx

Well here is is, my first ever surrey post. I’m pleased to report that I am loving it here - whilst its very surreal, its alot of fun. All the people are really nice - everyone on my floor gets on really well (all 11 of us - 6 girls and 5 boys) and we’ve already all been out once together. Its good cos we’re already all looking out for each other, and everyone seems fairly comfortable socialising.
The accomodation is great and its so bizarre having all my stuff in this new place - it doesn’t feel like home yet, more like a holiday but I’m sure that will wear off as soon as lectures kick in.
I’ve had a welcome talk from the head of the department of psychology and I have my time table (which I am pleased to see starts at 10 am everyday rather than 9!)
So far student life is good :D

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx

My life is now boxed and ready to be relocated; summer officially ends fairly soon and a my Uni adventure begins! Its been a fantastic summer, and I’ve learnt alot about myself, about my friends and about life in general.
I’ve faced down a few demons, and found that I’m actually a lot more emotionally stable than I give myself credit for.
I’ve strengthened friendships and I’ve lost a few.
I learnt that everything changes - for better or worse -and that resisting this is too much like swimming against the tide; you’ll only wear yourself out and it will happen just the same.

I hope me and my friend all manage to maintain contact through the millions of channels availiable - I’m gonna miss you guys. I’m gonna try and keep up blogging for my sake if for no one elses.

So there isnt alot else to say apart from good luck everyone in your futures! May they be bright, sunny and successful whatever path you choose

Lotsa Love
Kat
xxx