The whole year through: 2009

Like last year, I am late in posting this, this being of course a review of the previous year as a narrative, summed up in a single post. Lets start where I left off shall we? one year ago...

After making the monumental decision to make the intangable leap from psychology to performing arts, my mind became a battlefield. Psychology was a race to the finnish, I was so eager to get started at Salford uni but my pyshcology course was gaining pace as it was reaching its finale. Assignments piled one on top of the other as the stress mounted, what was harder however was that the stress mounted, penetrated and didn't even cuddle me afterwords...

I am speaking of course, of the nonesense which began in January of last year, and continued througout 2009 and beyond. The day after last years post, Jayden Watts was born by caesarian section. My nephew was a month premature and was kept in hospital for over a month with one ailment or another, he was finally released after a hernia operation. However, Jayden's parents; my brother Colin and his girlfriend Sarah are two morons, and I mean that in every concievable sense of the word. Both of them were at the time claiming DLA, him for ADHD and her for... Is 'thick as pig shit' a medical term? well whatever it was, social services were not going to let them try to raise a child, and my brother knew it way before the birth. I feel I should mention that my brother re-entered our lives in august of 2008 after three years of no contact, of course Sarah was heavily pregnant, which lead us all to see the obvious; that he had knocked up an idiot (as idiots tend to do,) and is coming crying to daddy for help, but I digress.

Naturally, family is a very important tradition to us so my parents were not going to let Jayden into the adoption system were we would never see him again, unfortunately however this left us with only one option. Thats right, my parents began the lengthy proceedure of adopting my nephew (well, becoming 'special guardians' or whatever.) It was not easy, social services were fighting us every step of the way at that point and we needed to make some major changes, which were unfortunately for me going to coincide with these late deadlines and so on; the worst was still to come and I had no idea of it.

As briefly mentioned here, my parents won the right to be 'emergancy foster carers' which was at the time a major triumph but came at a price. As all the stress was piling on with uni, I was asked to leave home while the police sorted out my security check, I was booted out of my own house at a time when I really needed their support. The worse thing was that they (my parents) were apologising and felt so guilty that I had to leave (which was my choice, and I made it knowing how hard my parents were fighting for custody of my nephew,) add to that the nonesense with B.yoU, and old youth group I used to frequent which was pushing for a new production (which I had written and was starring in,) the stress was certainly piling up.

Not to mention it was around this time that I had put my application in to Salford through UCAS, for a performance course. I didn't hear anything back for what seemed like forever, which did not do to improve my mood, things were looking bleak. I heard back from salford and it was time for my audition which went... well, I explained it better here but in a nutshell, I was not impressed with how they handled it but was pleased to have a desirable outcome; This time I was all set to start my life in salford after the summer...

...but I didn't hear anything. For over six weeks I didn't hear anything after my interview. Nothing changed on UCAS, I couldn't apply for student finance but what was worse? I didn't even know whether I had got onto any of the courses I applied for or not (and had only applied for Salford in the first place.) Eventually, they updated my UCAS and I was surprised to find out I had been offered a place on HND media and performance, I was looking forward to it.

Roll on a few more month and major renovation work was almost complete on the house, new carpets and flooring, redecorating througout, a wall to split one of the larger rooms into a bedroom for me and a nursery for Jayden, it was a lot of work. My course has just about ended with all my assignments handed in and everything as it should be. It was about this time that my brother got married to my (now) sister-in-law Tammy, and we had to clean their house in its entirity because I was asked to dog/house sit for them and the place was layered with years and years worth of trash, but we did it and that worked out fine as well. It was also at this time we found out that my third nephew is on the way, he is due in March, and his name is Alex (I'm sure with the next kids my brother and sister-in-law will start on the 'b's.)

What followed this was a long and empty summer, filled with the sort of bubble gum dreams and meadow frolicking you would see in any teen movie, except it was all supported by the high I got from knowing that in the September to come, I would be starting university and my life was going to change. Jayden was assigned a new social worker who was at last working with us instead of against us and I managed to move back home, into a broom cupboard with a bed in it (which I was greatfull for, having spent over a month living as a burden on my brother and his girlfriend, in their house across the road.) I am getting my times mixed up here I think, It must have been more than a month spent at my brother's house, as I remember going to Bolton uni while staying there, funny thing memory isn't it?

In august, just before my birthday, I went on a weekend residential to train as a Stonewall Youth Volunteer, I had a wonderful time and made some cracking friends whom I can't wait to see again at the awards ceremony this coming march. Since last august I have been working on a campaign to improve the situation regarding homophobic bullying in schools. however, the verdict is still out on how successful I will be.

Lets see, where are we up to now... ...lets call it September. My summer was over, all of the finance and accommodation stuff has been sorted out, it was time to head to Uni. After moving over and breaking the ice with freshers week (I didn't attend much, shocking I know) it was time to start my course; HND Media and Performance. The year kicked off with a three week project at the Lowry which was called Beyond the Front Line (I blogged the whole thing, and even I like reading over it every now and again.) It was on this installation workshop that I made friends with some fantastic people, the sort of people you know you will be friends with for many years to come (also the sort I had already made while studying at Bolton Uni.)

Also, and I still don't know how to be truthfully honest, I ended up joining the Salford Sirens, which is Salford Uni's cheer leading squad. I don't do the dances, but I do the stunts (lifting and making pyramids and such) and the tumbles (the gymnastics, I'm almost able to flip flop!) I think I may have touched on this as a part of my series on healthy living, but it is fantastic exercise and has just enough danger to be manly.

And there you have it. Aside from an amazing amount of weight lost compared to previous rates of weight loss (16-15st at the beginning of 2009, 13.1st at the end) I have pretty much settled into life as a first year student. That's not to say that life is uneventful, stand-up is still my main goal and I have a few things in mind for the coming year as well as learning to drive, not to mention this improvisation course I am starting (in about two hours, weee!) at the comedy store which I will probably post about another time.

I always gauge my life on how many things I have to worry about. If I have a lot to be worried about, I'm obviously not doing too well, but if I have relatively few worries then things are looking good. at this point, I have much less worries than I did a year ago and I hope the trend continues. See me in a years time, doing a ten minute open spot and ripping the house down with improvisational eccentricity.

It is going to be a fantastic year.

PS: I know this is half a month late, but I was too busy having fun. x