Hi. I'm in the library having just posted a council job application on the interweb, and am now waiting around town until my JSA appointment arrives. I haven't the time to mess around adjusting the dates of posts, so here's what happened at the weekend.

The house filled up on Saturday. I found Rob in the kitchen, Dan dropped his stuff off and naffed off with his Dad until the evening, and Adam showed up on Sunday morning. So, just James* left to go then.

On Sunday I went to the first chaplaincy mass of the year. It was pretty short. Much of the CathSoc fresher's week stuff involves cream teas. When I got back, I was quite bored, owing to it being a Sunday and everyone else mooching around or being out, so I wandered into town on the offchance of meeting Will, Rosie, or Nina. I met Nina - score! - who seems well, and was waiting outside HMV for her friend. When I got back Neil phoneds to say that he was shortly arriving with bedsheeets and similar kerfuffle, so I met him own there and picked them up. We're going to see Spirited Away at Picture House on Thursday. Will phoned later and myself, Will, Rosie and Gavin ended up at the Artful chatting. I think Flowers has gone down in price. I'm not a fan of the Artful's new look - it's got sofas.

N.B. James naming conventions will resume normality when he arrives. The other James will have to leave by then in any case.

Um, that's it I think. JSA and Housing benefit forms are a pig, and demand that you pry into the financial affairs of your housemates, so that isn't fun. Speaking of which, have fun.

Now I'm in the LaTiS centre. On the way I notice that they've installed something that looks very much like a Stannah Stairlift on the ground floor. Very odd. I can't print anything no more, so I need to turn a PDF into GIFs, or possibly PNGs, as I hear compuserve are getting very arsey about their copyright. What tedium. Ah well, at least I'm doing it on computers like what they thought we'd be using in the sixties. Very nice.

My word! Ella has posted things! Haven't decided whether she's earned a place in the ol' titlebar though.

Well here I am on campus again; I'm nothing if not dependable. I thought it'd be harder to get a computer than this, but it was dead easy - busier yesterday.

I got back and the changing of the guard had occured again, with Norris replacing James, watching Daylight on TCM which sounds crap. I think I had more fun by abstaining from that and cleaning my windows. I didn't know where the Windolene was, but Norris did, so I had a quick blast with that. While I was at it I tried it on James' window, which is the dirtiest in the house I think, but unfortunately, yet somewhat predictably, most of the dirt is on the outside. Most of the dirt on my windows was on the outside too, but there's a handy, person-sized area of roof outside such as one may stand on with assurance of security, so I gave it a bit of washing up liquid and hot water treatment. It was a bit too dark to tell the difference when I'd finished, but in the morning I saw that my beautiful view was even more beautifuller.

Sleeping in a sleeping bag, as I am until I get a quilt cover (I found a quilt in a cupboard - hopefully no-one else will want to use it), is fine, but I got a bit of a chill around the neckal region, so I wore a scarf that night. Worked a treat. Really oddly, both James and Norris are in the habit of getting up and getting out of the house before I emerge - it's spooky. I decided that my sleeping-bag needed a wash, so that stopped me being here earlier. I also found some mail (helpfully hidden under other mail) for me. I asked for two application forms from the phone number they gave me. One came, with a note saying that the other had already expired. Sheesh.

So here I am, gathering rosebuds while I may.

Good grief; I have to walk up to campus to post, and I'm still the last person to have blogged. Well, I suppose it wasn't that unlikely really.

I got bored. Norris went out somewhere, and James was talking to his gf on the phone, and apparently planning on doing nothing cooler than watching cable TV, so here I am in the Queen's building, blogging.

I lost my coat. I went back to everywhere I'd been today, but no-one had it. It's just as well I'm dead hard. Two disappointing things today: firstly I filled in most of a form only to find, on the list of requisites, that I needed at least six months similar experience. Then I found that one of the three jobs the Jobcentre found for me had already passed the closing date. I spent the rest of the day after finding these things out (only about half an hour till 1700) listening to Chris Moyles and getting my CDs together. Gavin says that the university will take me off the system over the weekend, so I suppose I'd better come back here tomorrow, and use my print credit, if I still have any, on job things.

Well here I am in Exeter Public Library, where you can have thirty minutes access for free. Things are going oookay.

Yesterday, after arriving, I started unpacking myself, but then I got Neil to help me. We asked if we could park at the Esso for a bit. They said no, but they said in in a really arsey way, which hacked me off. Still, all this is behind me. Later Neil picked me up and kindly treated me to a small margherita and two glasses of 7up at Pizza Hut. This was just as well, because I have practically no food. Then it was decided that we should go shooping which we did, so now I do have food.

When I got back, Norris was ther, and not James, kind of like a chaning of the guard or something. So I chatted to him for a bit, but went out later to meet Gavin at the Imperial. I met Gavin at the Imperial, and wasted no time in saying "Why are we here?", so we went to the Artful for a quick drink. Gavin bought me a pint. To steal a phrase, he's a wonderful man. I was pretty curious to see his place, so we went back there. I marvelled at the amount of stuff in it for a bit, and then we watched some of the pilot episode of Thundercats, which is class.

Today, I got up and did various things. The Jobecentre's moved since I was last here, but I found it in the end. They're sending some forms to me, and the nice lady on the end of the phone there found three doable-sounding jobs for me to check out, all at higher salaries than what I've been applying for. Quite happy about that. Then I bought a cycle helmet, shampoo and jam. I had to leave the Jobcentre to do that.

Just to let everyone know, I didn't get the job for the interview I went for last week. Ian was really nice about it - he said my application form was good and I interviewed really well, there was just a few areas that I didn't do well enough in. I'm hopefully going in to see him some time next week to get some full feedback on it all, which will be helpful.

Mare de nuit! I've broken down; the gearstick sort of fell out of place and is now all floppy and bangs against the undercarriage. So I'm waiting at West Camel, Yeovil for the RAC. On the plus side, R3 played Beethoven's "Apassionata".

Update: Fixed and ready to roll.

Well here I go (feeling a good deal less livid, but no more impressed) into the brave quasiknown of Exeter as seen through the eyes of non-student a.k.a. "a real person". Pray, or wish me luck, or beat your head against a wall to express sympathy - it's all appreciated.

An incredibly harsh and stupid thing has been done to Nicholas. He's only just found out today that despite being given a grant to get better at music, he can't. There is no band. There is no choral society. He would have to travel 50 miles to Cardiff to find these and to find musical instructors. Speaking of other things, I find that this is the one steaming, giant turd in the ointment of things that are otherwise going well, this being, ideally, the kind of halcyon time when one doesn't have to take any of this kind of shit. He's distraught, and I'd quite like to be able to walk over to the person responsible, rip his head off and poo down his neck. These are not wholesome thoughts, and hopefully very unlike me, but I'm angry for him.

Does anyone fancy a game of chess?

I have decided to try and get better at chess again. I went through a point back in Sheffield of playing chess alot with friends and did get a bit better but got bored of playing the same people all the time. Dave, Adrians friend from uni started it all off. Hes decided to take up chess and beat me the other day with moves that I used to look out for but missed. I think I've got a bit crap again.

I've found quite a good website for playing chess. It called itsyourturn.com and you don't have to be online at the same time to play. You take your turn and then wait for the other person to log in and take theres. Which is a much better idea I think for online chess as some games can take quite a while. So does anyone fancy a game of chess? If so you just need to register and challenge Emma307 (thats my userid for it).

Well, I guess this is the real end of anecdotefreezone; It was only really a cosmetic difference till now really. It's been fun, but no longer will I even attempt to keep a quantitative daily record, and instead shall post sporadically as seems appropriate, accompanied by relations both and blood and of, um, not blood. On the plus side, maybe people will have more to talk to me about when they meet me in the flesh.

I've been doing a little light packing, reading some bible (apocryphal/deuterocanonical Esther), eating with Mum at work, going to a charity shop and collecting Dad's prescription. The usual protestant Esther, I believe, is the one book in the bible which doesn't actually mention God, but the additions to Esther do. Interesting. Dance until your feet catch on fire.

This evening, I shall go to the Monkey Puzzle pub quiz with Ruth, and we shall win, because Ruth is very good at pub quizzes, and I'm very good at... being around when that happens. Hopefully when I get back, Nicholas will have blogged, I don't want to leave without having any idea wat he's getting up to, though if I do I can phone him from Exeter of course.