Top 5 Things I'll Miss About University - Part 2

Moving swiftly on from where I left off, we are at...


Number 3 - Basketball  
I've loved basketball since I first saw my dad play with some friends while I was still a kid. I loved it so much that, even during my exile from physical activity, I agreed to play in the singular match of the unbeaten Davenant Sixth Form Basketball Team, set up by Demos Averkiou. Although I quickly retreated back my life of distancing myself from the sports types of the world, I still remembered the simple pleasure of throwing a sphere through a cylinder and as I spent my time sitting in living rooms watching One Tree Hill, I never let myself forget how much I wanted to play again.

It was Gareth Barker who helped me bring it all together. He convinced me to book a court and after we spoke to our house-mates and sent a few Facebook messages, it actually happened, a collection of geeks played basketball and from the very first game it was something that I loved. Finally, after years of participating in team sports in this country with aggressive, testosterone driven douche bags, I could play an amazing sport with friends who were willing to have fun. Playing with friends also meant one other crucial factor, my own competitive nature which had led to problems in the past could be kept under control (most of the time, as long as someone didn't throw a ball at certain areas of my body with force). 

The other reason that playing again really made my last few months at uni different was that it was nice to remember that, when I'm not surrounded by people I hate, I'm actually not the worst athlete in the world. I wish we had started earlier and had more time for it, but all of it will be a truly great memory to take from uni, and the thing on this list I most look forward to doing again when I visit my friends who are still there.


Number 2 - Game Soc + No Wave
 I loved societies at Surrey and its only recently that I really figured out why. I thought about all the things I loved about uni, and all the people I'll miss now I'm gone and I realised that they all came one of these two places. Either Game Soc or No Wave, the alternative music society, provided me with every friend and every night I enjoyed while in Guildford. Except for the gym, every item on this list came about because of these societies and, with only one notable exception, every girl I met and horrendously messed things up with while in Surrey came from these places too.

I spent three years as the secretary of Game Soc, a position that didn't require a whole lot after the first few months of being elected, and had more of an on again/off again relationship with the ever changing No Wave but I will be eternally grateful to both societies for giving me the friends, the stories, and even the name that I have taken from them. I'm going to miss the pure escapism that is found in DnD and I'll miss the opportunities to DJ at alternative nights at the university,  but more than that I'll miss the people who made the societies great and hope that they both manage to survive long after I have left.


Number 1 - Milhouse
I hugely doubt that this will be a surprise to anyone who has known me over the last year, but there really could be no other end to this list. For those that don't know, Milhouse is the house I lived in for my final year, and if the societies above are what gave me the greatest things about university, this house was the result of that. I got the chance to live with four (basically five) guys who just made everything fun.

Milhouse at our greatest party.

Between Brian Fraser, Alex Dale, Tom Pritchard, Richard Vickerstaff and the sixth member, Gareth Barker I loved everything about the house. From the parties we threw to the trips to friend's houses and our final, awesome, trip to Alton Towers, everything just worked. But in all honesty, the best thing about the house was that I could spend a night in there, just watching Buffy or Arrested Development and playing Mario Kart and it would be as fun as any night where I would've had to spend stupid amounts of money, go outside, or at least get out of my stretchy pants.

Milhouse at Alton Towers.

The in jokes, rules and traditions that we created within that house will stay with me forever, and I do really believe that I will still be friends with these guys when I am old and sitting on a front porch. I have an image of sitting in my house as an old man on a Sunday afternoon and one of these guys walking in and taking their tops of with a declaration that it is Topless Sunday.

I'll stop soon as I don't want to bore you with how much the house meant to me but I just want to make one last point to show how much I will miss it. From knowing me, or reading what I write, it isn't hard to work out what is the most important thing to me, the friends that have been with me for years. I went to university with a pretty bad mind state that I didn't need anyone else, because I had such incredible friends at home, however all of that went out of the window when the guys of Milhouse showed me that I can find incredible friends anywhere, and it will be my life long goal to steal them to London and have them join my front porch plan.

So, thank you to all five other members of Milhouse, as well as the people in stayed in our house so much and helped make it great, such as Travis Wren and Rosh Sellehewa. It's you guys who gave me what I will miss most about university. You put up with my whining and argumentative nature and made my final year everything I had wanted university to be. Milhouse is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I will always miss the happiness I found in that decrepit old house.



Well, there it is. That's what I'll miss now that I've come home and am getting on with life. I know I'll go back and visit a lot, but it is good to feel as though things are moving somewhere. The next blog is going to be the first of the, out dated, argument type ones and will be called something along the lines of Britain Wanted No Alternative To Whining.

Top 5 Things I'll Miss About University - Part 1

As I said in the last blog, I recently left my uni home for the last time and it has made me all kinds of nostalgic. I had three very different years in Guildford. The first was incredibly fun but consisted of ignoring a lot of issues that had been building up for some time. The second was a more difficult year where I dealt with at least some of those issues and after that everything really came together for my final year and it was one of the greatest I have ever had.

On the following Top 5 you won't see any points dedicated towards drinking or "the freedom of university" because the things I'll miss were more personal than that. I can drink with friends anywhere, and freedom can be found in any place if you look hard enough. These are the five things that really made university for me, the things that I won't be able to have in my life any more and the things I'll truly miss.


Number 5 - The Gym

This may sound like an odd place to start a list of things that I'll miss about university but I really loved that gym. To say that before I went to university I was a skinny kid would be a pretty big understatement. In a different life I loved sport, back when I lived in New Zealand, but when I got back to England I had a few bad experiences with it. These came either through my own competitive nature making me act like an idiot, or the pathetic mentality of most teenage boys making me want to distance myself from them as much as possible. And so I became a dedicated follower of the path of laziness, except for brief but enjoyable bouts of squash with the dad and brother (I know, we are horribly middle-class). I looked like Peter-Parker pre spider bite or Steve Rogers pre super soldier serum, I'm not saying I look like Captain America now, but if you looked at me you could be tricked into believing that I didn't spend all of my alone time as a teenager reading comics and playing RPGs.

In the end I never did get bitten by a spider, as far as I know, and no weird scientist ever gave me some formula to make women want to touch my pecks, it was just a devastating event that filled me with equal amounts of self-loathing and anger that pushed me to get back into activities. A first year house-mate saw how angry I was and suggested that I go to the gym to work off some stress and from there it all happened very quickly. Before I knew it I was going every day, and on slow days I would even consider going twice. It helped. It made me feel better about my self and gave me less time to think about other things. For the first time in my life I was in a situation where talking to my friends couldn't make me feel completely better, and in the end it was an old, dusty building that got me through it.

However its not that old, dusty building that takes a place on this list. It's a new, shiny building. When Surrey Sports Park was built I finally learnt to enjoy the gym without it being about taking out aggression. I was happier again and my reasons from lifting heavy things had changed from a desperate need to concentrate on something to regular, run of the mill stress relief as well as a begrudging vanity and enjoyment of having a better body. With happiness came a lesser attendance to the gym, but it was always there to give me time alone when things got intense. I've found a gym at home, but it just isn't the same. At Surrey Sports Park there was state of the art technology, a climbing centre, swimming pool, squash, tennis, badminton and basketball courts, the latter of which will be coming back later. There was also a nice bar and a Starbucks standing as a wonderful salute to capitalism along with the two others on our campus. So I will miss the Sports Park for the equipment and opportunities, but mainly I will miss it as it was the place where I rediscovered a love of physical activity and later a place where working out changed from something to get me through, to something I could just enjoy.


Number 4 - The Music

4.a. Strangers on a Train - Farenheit 55


The live music scene around Surrey University is hardly something to sing about but the best of what does exist can be attributed to one person and the few others who help him out. Andy Panpipe Vale has done more for the quest to bring great music to Guildford than anyone else I've seen and the best of this is undoubtedly the night that he has run at the Farenheit 55 bar in town with the help of Byron Johnston and others.

I was still in my first year when I started to occasionally tag along with a group of people I was slowly becoming a part of to see the musical excellence that was being displayed in the bar. The group continued to go every week for the next two years, and as often as possible once money had been drained and work got harder in final year. It was a brilliant chance to see the most exciting and unique examples of live music. From incredible acoustic guitar players such as Declan Zapala, Byron himself or, my personal favourite Mark Aaron James, to beat boxing harmonica players and other things I didn't even know existed as well as great bands like Love. Stop. Repeat..

Mark Aaron James playing at Strangers on a Train. Photo provided by Gareth Barker, AKA Hot Fudge.

What separated Strangers on a Train from other music nights for me was how friendly nearly all the people who played there were. Over the years we got to know a lot of the musicians involved and MAJ even ended up playing an amazing gig in our house during a party. The night is an incredible testament to what can be achieved when people are dedicated to something and I would recommend anyone who can get to Guildford on a Wednesday night should check it out. Andy Vale will be moving on to other ventures after his last night on September 7th with the astounding Two Fingers of Firewater playing. After that, the night will definitely miss his input.

4.b. Conspiracy - The Boileroom

It feels like a break of etiquette to break up a point like this in my first Top 5 on the blog, but what Strangers on a Train offered in live music, the Conspiracy night managed to match in the fun of a club night. DJs Dan Manthorpe, Adam Burgess and especially Tree managed to create the most friendly and enjoyable environment I've ever seen in a club.

The music was always fun, varying from brilliant heavy stuff to hilarious covers and mash-ups with random theme tune and jazz bits dropped in near the end of the nights. Conspiracy was another place to meet great people and enjoy music. In a similar fashion to Strangers on a Train, head DJ Tree is leaving the night as he moves to London with his girlfriend to pursue awesome jobs so I won't be the only one missing the Conspiracy nights.

It was the final Conspiracy night where I celebrated my last night staying at the house, and it was a fitting end with so many of the people who made university for me being there. I know there will be great club nights in and around London, but I doubt any of them will be as enjoyable and relaxing as the Conspiracy nights over the last year.


As I'm new to this whole blogging thing I'm not really sure of the length one of these can be before people just stop reading. That's why I'm going to take a break here and finish the list of in the next blog that will be coming soon. Feel free to take guesses at what the Top 3 Things I'll Miss About Uni are. If you've known me over the past three years, and especially this year, they probably won't be hard to work out.