2008: With a little help from my friends

Reminded by Beccuh's MySpace blog that I still had to do this, I'll be trying to remember whats happened this year. I've never been so good at remembering things, especially when I don't have it in mind that I'll be writing a blog about it.

I suppose that's why I've started this blog; So I can remember what happens in my life. I'll have to print each one off just in case the Internet dies in some sort of nuclear apocalypse. So, to the year that's passed. Where to begin? Ah, you might say, "at the start", but its not that easy! ¬.¬

It feels like it has been a good year. With everyone turning 21 there have been many parties, each one special in its own way. It all started off with Ashley in January. We had to print our hands into a book and write a wee note to her as we came in. It was messy but such a nice touch. Good times. My party was on March 21st in St. Andrews with Fraser, Jess and Zoe. It was drunken. of course, and I cant remember much other than rave dancing at a Black Metal gig and an incident involving Fraser's housemate, his housemates girlfriend, me and Fraser himself. Oh, and getting lost looking for a party. Good times.

In July Fraser and Zoe turned 21 and their party was deep in the woods 8 miles out of town. Drunken, of course, and tempers flared and Zoe, in a rage at my rage and her rage (and on and on...) told me to just "go home then, if you don't wanna be here!". So I did, I walked home at 3.30am... it was scary and long but the stars were out and I still had plenty of cans in my bag. Packing my tent away in the pitch black was hard though. I got home just before 7am. Good times.


Then of course in December there Jess's fancy dress party. There is me and Zoe dressed as the Joker and a Jack, respectively. Amazing. That was a good night. There were many parties in between these events of course, but I cant list them all. Every one of them had their merits and I enjoyed them all ^_^

My luck in finding employment has not been as good as I had hoped. Impossible it seems, actually. My luck in Scholastic pursuits has been most excellent, however. I'll be starting again on January 12th. I really miss university after being without it for 2 years. The Crichton Campus is a really laid back and academically inspirational place. The staff are all friendly and due to its size you can actually have time to talk to your tutors in depth. You're also not sharing the library's history section with 200 other people like up in the main Glasgow Campus. Its a wonderful place and now that I'm at a better place in my life I can dive in head first and know I will succeed. Oh, by the way, I'll be doing an MA Liberal Arts in History. Yummy.

Relationships? Hmm... best leave that one alone. It isn't worth the blog space <.<

Musically this has been a good year. Too bad I haven't been paying enough attention to really talk about it properly. I saw Opeth twice, Children of Bodom, Arch Enemy, Sonata Arctica and some support bands. Opeth were great the first time, only hampered by the distorted to fuck sound and being billed below Arch Enemy - Glasgow missed out on getting Opeth to headline that particular night. I did spend the day with Scott though. An awesome dude and native of Glasgow. We had lunch at a place called Brel in the west end and had some good beer. I hen took him to a Celtic bar beside the Barrowlands that only had Guinness and Tennents, something he didn't enjoy XD Opeth were amazing the second time because they were at the ABC and the sound there is amazing. Cynic and the Ocean were alright, I'll really have to listen to them more.

Opeths new album was great; Heir Apparent being fucking brutal. Bloodbaths new release was brutal. Metallicas new album, Death Magnetic, was a welcome return to some good form compared to St. Anger. While they didn't release anything this year, I discovered Mastodon properly having not really cared for them before. I even saw them support Metallica at Wembley in 2007 and didn't bat an eyelid! :/ I aught to shoot myself just for that. I'm sure there were other albums I've heard this year that I could praise but after losing all my music I've not thought about it. I cant wait to start my collection from scratch again.

One of the true highlights of the year was the Dublin/Amsterdam/Eindhoven/Erp trip in September or October (seriously, am I that forgetful?!). Spending time with friends from around the world in these wonderful places was actually a lifetime highlight, not just 2008. All I can say right now is - THANK YOU to Sara, John, Jon, Mike, Marcus, Linnea, Misty, Bev, Laura and Rens. You guys provided the best week of the year. The 2 nights in Erp (Rens' home village) were particularly great. Just because it was the end of the holiday and we didn't have to rush around, sleep in a hostel or have headaches. We could just relax and that was the perfect end to the holiday. *See an earlier blog for more specific details about Erp*

All in all I'm most happy about the people I share my life with and its because of them that 2008 has been as good as it has. With such an ensemble cast it was bound to be a hit. Whether spending time at the pub or parties with my locals to sharing bandwidth with my friends around Britain, Europe, America and the world they have all added to my life in their own special ways and I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Life wouldn't be so fun completely on your own so that makes friends so damned important.

Thanks for reading :)