So it’s January again and the department is only just now starting to get back up to full steam. I’ve been back in since the 2nd in order to give myself plenty of time to get going again while it’s quiet. I actually quite like it like that. For most of the first week, there were very few academics in. Notably, Phil was around (the mark of a good head of department) and Marian was also in towards the end of the week. Other than that, it was pretty much just me, Monika, Kirsty and a few other VT students (Henry and Maslita then Mohammed and Ali on the Friday) around our part of the building.

Henry spent most of the time trying to finish sorting out his new accommodation and, most importantly, his Internet connection. It seemed like a good idea to go with the discount O2 gave him via his existing mobile contract in theory. In practice, their website was obviously designed by idiots and caused no end of problems. Why should we have to tell the web site that we’re logged in? Surely it should know!

Ibby also made an appearance on the Thursday (although much later than I expected from his phonecall the day before!) and Henry suggested some post-birthday drinks which was very nice of him. We spent a couple of hours in the Swim, having a good chat before going home.

This nice little spell of quite winterdom was over by the next week when people started to reappear en mass. There still weren’t enough people to warrant a postgraduate seminar session though, on the Monday, so it was cancelled much to Ramsay’s dismay at the loss of pizza. Most of my time over the last two weeks has been spent on getting the Sun stuff going, of which you can ready more on my other blog; other than that, it’s been lots of nice chats over cuppas as usual.

The biggest event of the last couple of weeks has to be our impromptu night out. Last Thursday, me and Henry bumped into Emily in the kitchen (she having returned on Monday, when we sadly took all the Christmas decorations back down) and were given a rather strange invitation to a night out. You see, she didn’t ask us if we wanted to join her but rather if we’d meet up with her if we were already going out. Kind of bizarre. We weren’t sure what to do, given the short notice. I know Em would never go out at such short notice, so it seemed a bit cheeky her expecting us to.

In the end, we decided to go and I texted Em to let her know. We were forewarned it was apparently a ‘girly night’, whatever that means, but even without any mascara, we still decided to go. Unfortunately, we were a little late in getting across to the Varsity and when we got there at 9, Em had left. We stayed for a drink anyway, then went across to the quieter Cavendish for another. As usual, the Varsity was playing loud music for the very few customers it has, while it was noticeably quieter but packed with people in the Cavendish. After some interesting chat, the two of us headed down to the Leadmill, again via the Globe, having agreed to meet Emily there.

The streets were desolate, with the Cavendish seemingly having the majority of tonight’s party people. To say we got to the Leadmill later than we have before (about half eleven), and yet it was still nearly empty, it shows how much the night-going population of Sheffield is dominated by the students, who were all still mostly away on Christmas vacation. We spotted Em and friend not long after getting there, but there seemed to be little hint of the girly night we were told about. Rather than interrupting her, we waited until she spotted us as well and decided to come over.

The night was a bit different to what I remember the last Thursday at the Leadmill being like. The music in the main room was way more cheesy than before, being a smattering of all sorts of pop music, while room 2, rather than being the usual indie stuff, was playing house music. Sadly, as always popularity surrounds the worst music, and the poor DJ in that room had very few people on the dancefloor. These kids today just don’t have any taste — I mean, Peter Andre? The guy kept repeating tracks too which always annoys me. 3 Britney Spears songs (1 twice)?

It worked out well though, because I think the DJ in room 2 realised he didn’t have to play to the crowd but could just play what he fancied. We went back and forth a few times; I got Henry to join me in there the first time, then the second time he initiated us going in there after hearing that the guy had moved on to playing some trance. The main dance floor was a joke. Not only was the music not too good, but the majority of people there weren’t even dancing and seemed to take it badly that some of us wanted to actually enjoy ourselves. They’d rather just stand there like idiots and get drunk.

Towards the end of the night, there were people falling all over the place, so I escaped once again to the other room, especially when I heard the DJ was now playing some drum ‘n’ bass! That made me very happy, even I was one of only about three people in there, while the rest were staggering around in the other room to Whitney Houston. Admittedly, it was commercial drum ‘n’ bass (Pendulum’s ‘Slam’ followed by Puretone’s ‘Addicted to Bass’) but this was still a league above what the annoying wedding DJ was doing in the other room. It’s always a sign of a bad DJ when they feel the need to talk to their audience and tell you what tracks they’re going to play. Honestly, it was like listening to Hallam FM or something.

The DJ finished the night with some old skool stuff, and then I met up with Henry again and we walked back up towards his house. I was in no rush to get back and I didn’t want to leave him until I knew he was cognoscent enough to get home okay. All in all, it was a good night and I enjoyed the chance to have a good chat with Henry. He’s a really good friend.