Sunday the 16th of December was to be the day that I trundled home after my university term had finished, but a couple of days previous, my sister had contacted me and told me that I should come and see The Pan I Am playing free somewhere in Camden and if that wasn't enough of an incentive, it was free aswell. (Just to point out here, for those who don't know, The Pan I Am is a band formed by ex-Larrikin Love lead man, Ed Larrikin.)
Of course I thought that this was a great idea, Larrikin Love were one of my favourite bands and having only seen them twice before the split I didnt want to throw up this chance. So the morning came and I packed my bags and realised.. bugger I'm gonna have to take all my bags to the gig, but this didn't stop me, I went down anyway.

So i got to the Lock Tavern, to find that to my surprise it was not just the Pan I Am playing but also, the Metros, 2 members of the View and the Magic Numbers, a less useful surprise was that the gig did not actually start until 5:30 when my sister forced me to get there by 2:30. That was ok though, we took an expedition up to the the less market-like parts of camden and even when into a large morrisons where we sat and ate a late lunch consisting of sandwich, crisps and salad, all of which were a little off, but for £1.69 I couold hardly complain. We made our way back to the pub for about 4:30ish and sat down and waited. Soon enough Ed Larrikin came in and to our delight so did Drew McConnel, the bassist from Babyshambles. Me being me I couldn't let this opportunity go so I had a photo. When I asked them for a photo, first Ed said ok and tryed to move out of the way so I could have a phto with drew but then I said no and dragged ed back in and drew tried to walk off but I said No again and dragged them both in with me. Ed unfortunately had his eyes closed and after complained of the light being too bright (I think he was stoned) but apart from that another great photo for my collection.

We sat back down and conversed, waiting for the first band, The Metros to come on, Little did we know, they were actually playing in the room upstairs. the acoustics must be very good in there because we had no idea this was happening. So we missed that and thus were sitting around doing relatively little until 6:30 when the band showed life and by 7 they had started playing.

As far as the Pan I Am go they were pretty good. The band consisted of a violinist, a cellist, drew mcconnell and ed larrikin and a man on the marracas. They played a few songs which i hate to admit I didn't at all know but I enjoyed thouroughly especially one song which I am informed is called something about Lucifer. Unfortunately due to the situation I found myself in with the bags and Caroline had some home work to be getting on with (ahh little sister still being at school) we decided to leave and thus not see the two members of the view nor the Magic Numbers who I am sure both put on a stirling performance. So we trecked off back to the tube station and made our way home.

A very enjoyable performance despite my less than gig-like apparel. I shall be seeing them again with less baggage.

And that is that for my Pan I Am blog, it was a little bit of a kop-out as I just adapted my 'last.fm' review into a more blog-worthy state. anyone who hasn't yet, join last.fm it is amazing. anyway ta-rah for now

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Ahhhh! the relief of having finished all of my essays for the term, there is really nothing much like it. I didn't realise quite how much the essays were bringing me down, but when I was finished it was like a huge weight had been lifted from me, I now have a licsense to party all the time. I was doing it anyway but now it almost feels like I deserve it. How is this story going to lead to a hilarious misunderstanding though you are thinking, I shall now explain.

As per usual, I was leaving all my work to the last minute and so it was the day before the due date for the essay and by around 9pm, eleven hours before it was due I was about ready to start.. reading the questions me and Ben realise that we actually needed a program that was only available on campus. Off we trot to the university with a blank CD hoping to get the program and then return home and we thought we had done that but no, when we got back we realised the CD didn't work. Grr.

So we decided that why not write the essays in the labs, we needed the program and it was a nice working environment. Off we trot again down to campus again, with our bags, some books and paper and we were ready for busines. We sat down and started to write. Here comes the first misunderstanding. After a few hundred words, a couple of diagrams and some time later we realised that ACTUALLY due to the nature of the question in hand we in fact did not need the program at all. We had spent 2 hours going back and forth in freezing weather all for a program that we didn't even need. Not letting it phase us we carried on working in the computer lab before we decided to go back home to finish the rest of the essay. Besides we both had a half eaten curry waiting for us there.

We went back ate some curry and then proceeded to write our essays. Bearing in mind we got home from uni at about 3 in the morning, five hours before deadline we had to write like the wind. (I do realise that the wind doesn't write but it still sounds like a good phrase). Ben finished his essay at about 6am and submitted his essay online as we have to do.. but wait, what does he see when he does it? Hilarious misunderstanding number two. We had actually got the due date wrong. The essay was not actually due until the day after... we had spent all night worrying about an essay that didn't have to be in for another day. What were the chances. I still carried on writing though and finished my essay at around 7:15 am, went to bed and then woke up at about half 3 in the afternoon and even re-read and edited the essay just because i could.

So unintentionally, I did an essay early and thus have almost solved my problem of leaving everything until the last minute. Well this is obviously untrue, luckily the due date was one day later and not one day before I still wouldn't have known. So ultimately i actually learned nothing.

Nevertheless I went out in the evening and got hideously drunk to celebrate the fact and here I now am, a little hungover and writing a blog.

and that is where I shall leave it for today.

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This will be the 100th blog that I have ever written on this here website and what better number is there to start a possible comeback? No that's right there probably isn't one really, so lets head on into the blog.

I flirted with the idea of a comeback over the summer when writing a blog/review of the electric gardens festival but that was just a one off in the greater scheme of things and who knows this one quite possibly could follow in the same vein.

So what have I been up to in the last year I hear you ask, well if I was to even start thinking about all the many blogging opportunities that I have missed. I drunk some more alcohol, I passed my first year of university, started renting a house between me and 5 of my friends at uni, I drunk some more and now I find myself here at stupid o'clock in the morning writing a blog rather than sleeping.

My new house is off campus in the small village of Wivenhoe, I live with Ben and Qandeel who I used to live with last year and Dan, Steph and Rossen who I didn't but I do believe there is at least a brief mention of all of them at some point in previous blogs. Coming to the end of the first term here in this house there have yet to be any real problems with the living conditions and everyone appears to be getting on fine. There have been rumours of people wanting to move out at the end of the year from both Rossen and Qandeel but neither have really come into a deffinite decision as of yet.

The only real problem that I am having is the work, yes I know the whole point of university is that you are meant to work so you can get a degree and then live your life happily ever after with lots of money. My problem isn't that I don't think there should be any work, it is that i STILL don't have the enthusiasm to do anything despite the extortionate amounts of money that I am paying to get this education. I foolishly believed on getting to university as a fresher that I would do more work than I did at A-Level, that didn't materialise and I put it down to the first year being worthless and so yet again I came into 2nd year thinking I would do more work but no I havn't. I rarely turn up to lectures or seminars, I don't do the readings that I am suposed to do and I am still rushing off my essays the night before they are due in. I have actually got to the stage of wondering why I am actually at university at all...

don't get me wrong, the university experience has been great, the living without my parents and having to do things for myself has been a great learning curve in life experience and I have met some of the coolest people that I am ever likely to meet but unfortunately that won't get me a degree at the end of the course. I really do fear that at the end of the course or possibly even by the end of this year, I will have come to the conclusion that I have just wasted an awful lot of my money and got not all that much potential to earn back.

This blog unfortunately will not be one of my happy-go-lucky blogs about how I have enjoyed a night out or something along those lines, it is just going to be a long rant about the problems of university living, although this next bit is a little less, oh shit i'm wasting my life and more - silly fat bastard, stop drinking.

The picture on the left is a before and after shot of me. The one on the right was me just a couple of weeks after joining university in October 2006, the picture on the left is me in November this year (2007) and I'm pretty sure I am not just seeing things when I say that in the one on the left I look a lot fatter. I know it is a bigger picture and all but I deffinitely have a more defined face in the picture on the right.

The problem with this though is that although I have identified the problem and know how to change it, namely doing more exercise, eating less crappy food and especially drinking less beer. I don't find myself wanting to change my ways enough to stop this process happening. It is very similar to my problems with essays and with most of the problems i face in my life, I fail to do things that I don't particularly want to do in the short term to benefit me in the long term. I know I should but I just don't. This is why I am poor, fat and am likely to get a poorer grade than possible, if not fail my degree.

and on that optimistic note I shall leave you, will I write another blog in the near future or will it be another year before I go again, that is something that only the sands of time will determine.

Ta Ta for Now, Ant

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