I was in the GTUK taekwondo team championships yesterday in Altringham. I had to get up stupidly early to get there for 8.30am (early for a Sunday I think). But it was worth it as our team got silver for our category - women yellow tag to green tag. We got bronze place for the sparring and then the top four teams had to do patterns and we got gold for that so ended up silver overall.

The sparring was really good fun and we didn't do too badly since we haven't actually done much of it with the proper gear and everything. It was a knockout tournament and we won the first round, lost the second so we thought we were out of it then, but then they called us up to fight for bronze place as there were only six teams. We drew that so had to send up our best fighter for another 30 seconds as a decider. So I ended up going up for that as Sam and Rose who were in my team think I'm better than them at sparring even though they are a higher grade than me. Anyway I won that 4-0. I kept getting my opponent with the same move, she didn't seem to work out what I was doing and I kept getting points for it so I carried on doing it. It worked anyway.

The only problem with sparring was at first we kept getting loads of warnings for breaking the rules. That was because we didn't actually know the rules very well and we had been told different for a couple of them. But by the third round we had worked it all out and settled into it. The sparring looks quite scrappy but its really good fun.

Anyway then it went to patterns which was a knockout thing again. Two teams did their pattern one after the other and the judges picked the best team. So we ended up doing it twice and won gold.

Stockport got the gold medal which isn't so bad I guess as they have the same instructor as us. I didn't actually like having to go up against them in the patterns (we didn't have to in the sparring). We beat them at that but they had got more points overall getting gold in the sparring and silver in the patterns.

For my first tournament it was really good. There is supposed to be an individual tournament in March so I think I will see if I can go in for that. And next time I will have a better idea of what to expect and stuff. And a better idea of the rules!

It's a little odd coming home to an absence of siblings, admittedly it's nice to see Mum and Dad, but I've rather got used to seeing or hearing one of you lot around. The train journey home was a little better than usual.

I'll be moving onto watches soon on the course after all this time, I'm a bit nervous as I'm not really sure that I'm up to watches. I'll enjoy being able to find my elusive head instructor more easily and hopefully avoid one particular student who is a general irritant for the Horology students, being a "You don't want to do it like that" personality.

Had a bit of a scare at college last Friday, all the staff were called away for an emergency meeting (at 11:00), so training was cancelled until after lunch time (13:45), obviously rumours were flying around, so a student meeting was called to "explain". The Principle in "manager \ politician" mode spent a lot of time saying nothing in particular, so the student asked the instructors for a real explanation. It turns out that it was just about a change in the college's board, admittedly it was the appointment of the stooge of the incompetent £40,000-wasting ex-chairman so there could be some worrying implications, but we eventually got the message that the courses would be unaffected.

I've decided that I hate undergraduates (well maybe hate is a bit harsh). Its been really nice living in Withington in Manchester until a couple of weeks ago when all the students decided to invade. There is now loads more rubbish on the streets, usually in the form of beer bottles and pizza boxes, and the bus into town takes so much longer as it usually sits for ages outside the halls. Also there is this flat across the road which must be full of students who don't know how to work a burgular alarm as its always going off as from freshers week. I hadn't realised how quiet it had been over the summer.

Seeing it from a locals point of view I can see why locals sometimes are not so keen on students. I never remember throwing litter on the floor or anything when I was a student. Its probably the small minority, as is always the case, that give them a bad name.

Just realised that I haven't blogged for over a week, so my gorgeous green boxes have dropped off the bottom of the screen. Hmmm, what have I been up to?

Back at choir on Tuesday. We're doing some nice pieces this year, Faure's Requiem (jointly with the orchestra), some Negro spirituals (we did one last year, and it was lovely), and other stuff. All looks good. Then I realised that I can't make the concert (13th Dec, Manchester, £3/5 student/non-student if anyone's in the area), 'cos I'm at: a) a wedding, b) a family do, both of which are in Hampshire. Grump. It's not looking promising that another day would be possible instead.

Tried out the Gospel Choir on Wednesday. I was curious. Entered the Catholic chaplaincy, to a small room filled with about 500 women, and 2 blokes (estimated figures!). Just did one piece, which sounded very nice by the end. Unfortunately, there's only one male part, so I'm struggling with the high notes, and the tenors are struggling with the low notes. I'll give it another go next week, but I'm not sure I'll keep it up. If I were single, I might be more tempted to stay.

Finally - today!
I gave a seminar. I usually find this a nerve-wracking experience, despite the audience consisting of the guys in my office (i.e. 3-4 people). Today's went well. I was trying to demonstrate an incredibly complicated computational technique in nice cases, the aim being to demonstrate that it's not that bad really, and to get people more comfy with using it. Makes me sound so considerate, doesn't it! I think people found it useful, so mission accomplished. Yay! Goran was also asking about what I was trying to calculate with it, so I got a lot out of the talk as well.
Enough technical rubbish - postgraduate football is back on! My Wednesday evenings are now complete!

Hello, I've got a job. County Hall had another vacancy for the same job I was interviewed for in payroll, and they gave me a ring to ask me if I wanted it. I start on Monday and it's 11706 p.a. Got some blogs to read now.

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.