h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, quite a lot of stuff has been happening over the last seven days. I can't remember every single detail, but I'll do my best to give you the gist of it!

To start with, one of the things that has happened is to do with my Faceparty profile - I've basically had one for a while, but I've only recently started to update it regularly. I've also bought the Cool Tools package that allows you to see who's visited your profile. And believe it or not, I have had far more visits to that profile in a week than I have had in the last 6 months! It's also been productive as far as meeting new people goes: I'm currently chatting online regularly to a couple of guys from Manchester, one of whom appears to be pretty keen on me - so much so that we're planning to go out for a drink on Wednesday evening. I'll let you know how that goes, BTW!

Musically, I've had an interesting week as well. Last Sunday (a week ago today) I attended a orchestral workshop at the Royal Northern College of Music. We were working on Mendelssohn's Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, which is actually one of the pieces I'm playing for another orchestra - so it was good to analyse the techniques for playing it! The following day saw me going to a rehearsal for the Oldham Symphony Orchestra, where we played Honegger's "Pacific 231" (basically, how to make a symphony orchestra sound like a steam locomotive! ) and the theme to "Star Wars" by John Williams - such fun!!! Wednesday: UMIST Symphony Orchestra - we were practising Brahm's Symphony no. 3 in F, which I've actually grown to love. I also had a rehearsal for the Gilbert and Sullivan society's "Princess Ida" (I have discovered that I *will* be able to play for them after all!) and one for the Congleton Youth Orchestra yesterday morning. Busy week, you might say - well, I haven't finished yet!

Work at uni has been going OK, if a little slowly and frustratingly (as far as collecting data is concerned). However, I was told that the field testing (which is supposed to happen in East Kilbride near Glasgow now) cannot take place until April because one of the processes for preparing the probe has not worked. Not only that, but the guy responsible for this has erroneously blamed me for the problem, as he claimed that I delivered the probe late to him - absolutely untrue, as it had been lying on his workbench for about six weeks! However, while everyone else knew I wasn't to blame, I still felt rather down on Tuesday evening (when I was told this), and since I had already decided to go to a Refreshers Party for the Uni of Manchester's LGB, I decided to get drunk and go to Poptastic with some of the others.

So after meeting HonestIago and two of his mates, I also met some guys that I'd met a while back and since they were going to Poptastic, I decided to tag along. So after getting drunker in Spirit , we finally got into Poptastic at about half 11, and after leaving my coat in the cloakroom, I got myself a coke to drink from the bar. However, a couple of minutes later, a guy near to the bar who had a couple of ladies with him beckoned me over to him and once I was in front of him, he took my glasses off and ruffled my already-waxed hair a bit while saying that if these things happened, I would be rather fit ... hmmm. He then gave me back my glasses and pushed me away. Rather odd that ...

About quarter of an hour later, I was dancing with my mates to whatever music Poptastic tends to play on a Tuesday night, when I spotted this same guy again (this time without the ladies). After observing me for about five minutes, he then beckoned me over to him again - when I got there, he put his arms around me and we started snogging (and groping, but the less said about that, the better! ). Basically, until Poptastic closed, we stayed together, moving around the club hand-in-hand, snogging at every opportune moment, him buying me drinks etc. Afterwards, he took me back to his place in a taxi along with his two lesbian housemates (who I think were the ladies at the bar). We all watched a video, drank a glass of Lambrini, and once the ladies had gone to bed, me and this guy made out some more before we finally went up to his room. Now for reasons of taste and decency, I cannot divulge exactly what happened there, but I *can* say that I finally left his house at 1:15pm the following day with stubble rash on my face and an overall feeling of contentment! Unfortunately, what happened that night is very unlikely to be repeated, since the guy already has a b/f (who was in Essex that night, which was why the guy was able to take me home). I don't know if I should feel guilty about this or not - he told me that he had a b/f while we were still in Poptastic and yet I still went back to his place afterwards. (Responses about this would certainly be welcome.)

Another side-effect of this was due to the fact that Mat (James' b/f) had spoken to me and seen me with this guy, so I got a call from James that evening to ask for details and - let's be honest about this - to spread the rumour to the UMIST LGB! It was also fun on Friday afternoon/evening, as we also had lunch and then drinks on Canal Street while we were discussing things (not just the rumours about me, but also a trip to Blackpool - I might be driving the minibus for that - and various parties and other events).

So that was a full and varied week - I'm hoping the next one will be just as good!