Highlights of 2004

I know that it is not actually the end of the year yet, but seeing as I am either going to be at work or at parties over the next two days, I thought that I would do this now. I was going to do highlights and lowlights, but I'd rather just concentrate on the good things. So here goes:

1. Dublin
2. Gimcrack
3. Ziggy's
4. FIA
5. Clio
6. Three jobs
7. Lost in Translation
8. Reflex
9. Reduced Shakespeare Company
10. Expenses

Merry Christmas

 

Need sleep

For some reason I can't sleep this evening. Maybe it's because I'm too excited about my trip away this weekend. Bit annoying though because if I don't get enough sleep then I will be all grouchy for all of the day.

Dilemma

Hmmm, not sure that I can spell "dilemma".

Now, I have bought a Christmas present for my ex-girlfriend. To clarify, this is the one previously described as my "dream woman". (That was probably over-playing her status - I was being a bit melodramatic in that post.) I will probably see her over Christmas, the question is should I give her the present? It is quite a nice present that I think she will really like, but it is a bit more than what one would normally give a person who is just a friend. I don't want to give her the wrong idea, because I am over her, but she is still a very close friend so I have bought her a nice present.

I think that I will go ahead and give her the present.

A review of a Chrimbo event that I went to last night (5)

We are almost at the end of the marathon of Chrimbo events now. This is because we are almost at Christmas itself, and it is not really appropriate to have Chrimbo events after the actual day.

Last night was the FARG Christmas Do at the National Railway Museum. Again the food was god and most of my friends who live in the area were there, with a couple of important exceptions.

Tsuki again was wearing a fabulous home-made dress, this time a red affair with rather high slits up the side. It was ok though, she told me, because she was wearing sensible pants underneath. Not sure how this helps really, but I am not an expert in women's underwear.

Hard to choose who had the best outfit, because so many girls were there looking gorgeous. It was much easier to choose the best-looking girl at event one. I hope to have a date with her in the New Year, when our schedules are less busy.

Entertainment was a little disappointing - bog standard disco was provided. For some reason I was expecting a band. Must have got my wires-crossed there.

So score has to be 7 out of 10.

A review of a Chrimbo event that I went to last night (4)

Last night, it was the joint-Xmas night out of the NBER and ABS teams. We decided to all go out together because the whole of Actuarial assume that we are the same team, even though we are not, even though we SHOULD be.

Meal was held in my favourite York restaurant, Pastiche, so I obviously enjoyed the food, and the company was good too. A nice finale to my short life in the ABS team.

Rating: 7.25 out of 10 - hmmm don't think Nina would like this score.

A review of a gig that I went to last night (2)

Have just been to a gig at Fibbers. The main act was the Bluetones and the support acts were Sixty6 and Velvetines.

Sixty6 were enjoyable enough, but forgettable. I enjoyed the Velvetines (although I think that I was the only one of my friends to do so). I partly liked them because the lead singer was pretty. Later in the evening I went to have a sit down at the back of the pub where it was less sauna-like. After a few minutes I realised that I was sitting next to the band! Didn't talk to them though.

The Bluetones were excellent, although they got off to a slow start. All-in-all a very good night out. PJK score is a high one - 35 including 5 bonus points.

Should really go to bed now because I have an early start tomorrow for my third trip to Norwich in as many weeks.

X-Factor

Tonight I had a party at mine to watch the finals of the X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. I had decorated the house with posters of the finalists from both shows.

In case you are interested, Steve won X-Factor and Jill Halfpenny won SCD.

Also got to hear all about Gee-Dee's adventure in Ziggy's last night.

Clever people

Had a good evening last night celebrating the qualification of lots of clever people. I sneaked out during the evening to grab a pasty from the Pasty Shop. This was a good plan!

I came home before Ziggy's happened. I think that this was also a good plan. I was very tired after having only three hours sleep the night before.

This morning I have got up early (again) and have been busy trying to activate all the cards and internet services relating to my new current account.

I have also been considering actually doing some work, which is quite scary. Several people were asking me in the pub last night "What do you do once you've qualified?". I guess the answer is work more! I almost ordered Sky Sports this morning, but thought better of it. So I won't be watching more sport.

In other news, I got a relatively encouraging text message last night. I was expecting it all day yesterday so was a bit disappointed when it hadn't arrived. It did eventually arrive about 10:40pm. By this time though, I had fallen asleep in front of Jonathan Ross (the TV person not the Scottish trainee!!) so I was unable to follow up the text. Which was probably good.

Congratulations

I'd like to be the first to congratulate the new qualifiers. I have counted 10 who have completed this time and it may well be 11. This beats our record from last time.

Sorry to those who didn't make it this time. I'm sure they won't be far behind.

I also spotted three names who qualified of people who have left the company and one guy I knew from University.

Stonking.

A review of a Chrimbo event that I went to last night (3)

Last night was the PM EB Christmas night out at the Monk Bar Hotel. This turned out to be completely different to what I expected. I was expecting a quiet meal in the hotel restaurant. In actual fact we got a much better night - there was us and a few other tables of people in a function room kind of like the Christmas Meal we had in the Hilton a few years ago. It was a party with disco.

I did my best to build bridges between Finance and Actuarial, which I think that I had reasonable success at. JM and I were invited to continue on to the Gallery nightclub, York. We had to decline because we had an early start the next day. This was the sensible thing to do.

Food was good, not as good as I experienced on my date there earlier in the year, which is to be expected.

So 7.5 out of 10.

Next up is the NBER-ABS Christmas meal in Pastiche.

A review of a Chrimbo event that I went to last night (2)

Well last night I was in London Town for the annual Christmas Cambridge reunion meal. This year this was held in Islington at Tiger Lil's. This is a stir-fry restaurant. You pick what you want to eat buffet style and then the nice men stir-fry it for you while-u-wait. We choose an all-u-can-eat option, so I did.

Food was lovely, as was the company so I can give this event a very healthy 7 out of 10.

Next up is the PM EB Christmas Party tomorrow night.

66 at last

I was going to write a blog complaining (again) that there are no 66 anywhere in the UK and suspecting that Chip, Lint and Bertie must have cheated to get past it. However, I do not need to do this because I did finally spot one today - a yellow Vauxhall Tigra at lunchtime today.

Yay. Things are on the up.

A review of a Chrimbo event that I went to last night (1)

It is now December which means that it is officially the festive season and this means that the Christmas parties can begin.

Last night was the Company-wide dinner at the Racecourse. I had never been to this before because it used to clash with the trips to Wales that I used to do. I had a fabulous time - food was lovely and plentiful, there were loads of people there, the music played was largely very good and there was a casino to bet at with fake money.

There were a lot more people there that I know than I expected so I was able to talk to lots of people that I don't normally get to chat to very often. I did almost miss my main course by doing this though, which would have been rather unfortunate.

All the girls in our group looked fantastic. Tsuki's home-made dress was pretty daring and didn't look home-made at all. I hope that someone has a picture of her back!

So my rating for this event is 8 out of 10. Next up is the PM EB Xmas Dinner at the MonkBar Hotel. I have eaten there before and it was delightful, but then so was the woman I was there with so that may have skewed my opinion of the place.

Recruiting is fun

Spent a lot of today learning about the Assessment Centre that is happening next week. We went through the exercises that the kids will have to do. There are many of these and it does seem to be more difficult than in my day, and more relevant too.

At the end of the session, we discovered who we are paired up with. I have Lint, so the kids had better watch out. We'll be ruthless!

Things are on the up

I am happy to say that things are on the up for me. I believe that this is due to a combination of factors:

• I have snapped out of the bad mood that I have been in all summer. I guess that this can partly be put down to post-qualification blues, but there was a bit more to it than that in reality.
• I have a new role at work that I think I am really going to enjoy, despite being sent over to that other building.
• It is almost Christmas and Christmas is a great time of year.

CNPS aaargh!

I have so far refrained from mentioning CNPS on this Blog, but I am now really frustrated by my lack of spotting a 66. Today I spent four hours in a car (travelling between Peterboro and Norwich and back again), and still failed to spot a 66. To make things worse I have seen loads of 67, 68 and 69. Yesterday there was even a 67 outside work laughing at me.

Chip has told me where there might be one, but I haven't seen it there either. Aaargh!

A fine city

Just time for a quick post before I go to the station to go to that fine city of Norwich for the day. This is the first of several trips planned so that I can learn the work for my new job in Existing Business.

PS - Is it just me or have other people had problems logging on to Blogger in the last couple of days?