Summer Antics

It has been three months since my last blog post. I hope you enjoyed the silence! A lot has gone on, good and bad, but I will save the negative bits for a later date. For now, a round-up of the good bits is in order...

I got my results at the end of June, and I'm delighted to say that I passed my first year with a 2:1 grade. I also got Firsts in a couple of my second semester modules, which I'm really pleased with. It's so nice to be able to look back on my work for the year with satisfaction and to look ahead to second year. I have to register in a few weeks and choose my modules, which I'm looking forward to. I've pretty much decided on everything I want to do this year, so hopefully my choices will work out as planned.

I've been to a couple of concerts this summer. Back in June, I saw The Who at the O2, performing my all-time favourite album Quadrophenia. I was so excited because I'd been hoping and praying for them to perform that album live for years. A couple of years ago, I saw Roger Daltrey solo performing Tommy and it was one of the best gigs I've ever been to, so to see Quadrophenia as well was something truly special. It was such a perfect night.

A few weeks later, I went to see Brian May and Kerry Ellis perform an acoustic show at the Olympia. I went with my friend and Multimedia comrade Adele, and we had a great time. It was such an intimate show; you could hear a pin drop. Kerry, for those not in the know, is a former cast member of the Queen musical We Will Rock You (which I have been lucky enough to have seen on more than one occasion) and she's an unbelievable singer. We bumped into her on the way in, and she's a lovely person. Afterwards we waited outside for ages hoping to meet Brian, but alas he'd already taken off, so that was disappointing. I met him a few years ago in London when I saw We Will Rock You, and that was an amazing experience. He's truly my number one guitar hero.

I was supposed to be seeing Blur a couple of weeks ago with my sister, but unfortunately I was sick so my ticket had to be sold. I'm still gutted about that, so moving on...

Last month, I went to Leicester for a few days to visit my best friend Mona. I had a great time. It was so nice to see her again, and to explore the city she now calls home. It's a lovely place; I was very impressed. We went shopping and sightseeing, and one of the most interesting parts was going to the Richard III exhibition. Mona is a History student, and I'm a big fan of it myself, so it was an enjoyable time.

I must mention that one of the highlights of my summer has been finally getting to see Monsters University at the cinema. As a huge fan of Monsters Inc., I was unbelievably excited about this, and it didn't let me down. While in Leicester, I ran into the Disney shop and bought myself my very own Mike Wazowski! Here he is below with his Minion friend, acquired by Mona on our trip to McDonald's.

As it's my 21st birthday soon, I have some nice trips to look forward to. My lovely mother and I are going for a spa treatment next week, and then I'm going to Manchester with my dad to see United play Chelsea at Old Trafford. It's David Moyes's first home game as manager, and I can't wait.

My living arrangements are all sorted for the coming year too. I will be living closer to town this year, which means that I will have to get the bus in and out of uni each day, but it's only about a ten or fifteen minute journey depending on traffic. I'll be living with family, so that will be nice. Living on my own last year was a great life experience, even if I wasn't Larkfield's biggest fan. I can cook without poisoning myself or anyone else, and I can look after myself convincingly. It could be a bit lonely at times though, so being surrounded by people I know and love will be nice.

I can't wait for second year to start.

Summer is Here

Well, that's it. Last assignment of the year handed in and I'm officially finished for the summer. While nearly everyone I know is frantically revising for exams, I'm sitting here feeling blessed to be a Multimedia student... in fairness, it's not like I haven't had my fair share of exams in the past few years anyway.

I am now faced with the prospect of four months off, but I sure as hell won't be spending the longest summer holiday of my life sitting on my backside. I've got lots of plans. Here are a few of them.

Make a radio documentary – I've been planning this for months and have finally been able to make a start on it. I won't reveal the details yet because I'm paranoid about idea thieves who might be out there, but I recently recorded an interview and will be conducting a few more soon. Once I have it all put together, I'm hoping to have it broadcast. Fingers crossed.

Write as much as possible – I've already had a few articles published online, and I intend to keep this going. I've also set up a blog on comedy which I have big plans for, so watch this space. I've been meaning to return to writing fiction for some time now (I used to write loads of it) and I finally have the time to do that now without having to worry about assignments etc.

Go to Leicester to visit my friend – Again, something I've been meaning to do for ages, but when you're both busy with university in different countries, it's difficult. The only thing holding me back at the moment is money, but I'm determined to get over there.

Go back to Old Trafford when the new season starts – As my 21st birthday conveniently falls within the first couple of weeks of the Premier League season, I have been promised a match ticket. There's nothing better than going to watch United, and the fact that David Moyes is taking over as manager adds to the sense of anticipation.

Gigs galore – I've got three coming up this summer. I'm going to see The Who at Marlay Park in a few weeks (performing my all-time favourite album, Quadrophenia). Then I'll be seeing Brian May and Kerry Ellis at the Olympia at the end of June, with a friend from my course. Finally, I'm going to see Blur at the beginning of August with my sister, at the National Museum of Modern Art. This is the best summer of gigs I've had in ages!

Record music – Since I got my Zoom H4n for Christmas, audio recording has been made a million times more amazing for me. I'm getting back to playing guitar as much as possible and recording a lot of music.

Hope for a job – I've applied for a job, but I won't say what it is yet in case I jinx it. But fingers crossed!

These are just some of the ways I'm planning on spending my summer. I've never been the type of person who gets bored easily during a long break, but I'm pleased to have all of this to keep me going anyway.

The End is Rapidly Approaching

Believe it or not, I'm into the last two and a half weeks of first year already. I think everyone is in a state of shock that it has passed so quickly. As expected, I am extremely busy with work. I have a 'creative biography' essay to hand in (I chose to do mine on Spike Milligan, and I have thoroughly enjoyed writing it), a video project to work on, another website to design and several articles to write for it. I have to say, though, there are times when none of it actually feels like work because I'm enjoying it so much. Well, most of it. I had a group presentation last week which I am only too relieved to have finally got out of the way...

Aside from having two and a half weeks of lectures left, I also have only three more radio shows. It's been great fun. As I've mentioned before, DCUfm has undoubtedly been the highlight of my year, and I hope to continue presenting The Rock Files next year. One way or another, I'm incredibly excited to be involved with the station for another two years.

Speaking of which, this week I also won a free pizza for a piece I wrote about my time at DCUfm so far. You can read it here if you wish: What do I love about DCUfm?

As for my summer plans, I'm about to start applying for jobs, though I'm not overly optimistic to be honest. I'll also be working on a radio documentary, the details of which will be revealed in time, and will be doing a bit of web design, both for myself and for other people. I'm trying to save up enough money to go and visit my friend in Leicester, and then I'm also going to play lots of guitar, as I have sadly been neglecting it since I started university. Terrible I know.

So that's pretty much the plan for the next four months of my life, and then I'm a big second year. Scary!

18 Days To Go

It's finally August! This means eighteen days until I hear something back from CAO. Actually, scratch that - seventeen days until I go to bed and struggle to sleep because I'll be too nervous and excited about hearing back from CAO. That sounds far better! Honestly though, it feels like these past few weeks have dragged by. The whole thing has been agonising, to tell the truth. I can't wait for it to be over. It's absolutely horrible just waiting around knowing that it's all out of your hands. There are times when a song just sums up your life completely, and right now for me that song is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' The Waiting, from their incredible 1981 album Hard Promises (warning: I will probably talk a lot about Tom Petty on this blog because he is one of my idols).

I can't say the summer has been too uneventful though, despite all the waiting. I have been able to spend some much-needed time with my best friend, who is home from her university for the summer holidays, so that's nice. I've been to a family party, which was great fun, and I'm going to another friend's 21st on Saturday. I've also been to a couple of concerts. I saw Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the O2 back in June (see, I told you - that's the second mention in this post alone) and it was amazing. I then saw Bruce Springsteen at the RDS a couple of weeks ago, which was also great. I think that may be it for the summer as far as gigs are concerned. I will, however, be jetting off to London in October for Alice Cooper yet again. This will be my fourth time seeing him, and my third Halloween in a row doing so. Hopefully I'll get to see Ray Davies at the O2 a week before that. We'll see how my bank balance is doing...

Oh, and I've got to mention the great summer of sport we've had. Usually I would be suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms once the Premier League season comes to an end, but not this time. Euro 2012 was gripping stuff to watch even though Ireland were embarrassingly hammered in all three of their games. Wimbledon was brilliant too. I'm a big Roger Federer fan so I was overjoyed to see him win another Grand Slam. It was also immensely satisfying to prove all my friends wrong when they said he was past it. Go Roger! And now we have the Olympics. I'm quite enjoying the swimming, even though it's not something I've ever really been interested in watching before, and obviously I have my fingers crossed for our boxer Katie Taylor in her bid to take home gold.

Speaking of sport, I've decided that I need to start getting fit myself. I used to be so active when I was younger and had something like three training sessions and two matches a week at one time. What happened to me? Well, I know what happened, but I won't go into all that - I'll bore you another day! Anyway, I've decided that if I get into DCU, I'm going to take up football again. By football, I mean soccer - but just for future reference, I refuse to call it soccer.

Right, that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have something a bit more interesting to say over the next couple of weeks.