YSA convention day 2 morning " It's alive"

Now on a campus with nearly 900 YSA I was in no way stupid enough ( hard to believe sometimes I know) to believe that I would be able to get a lot of sleep. What I wasn't expecting was to be awoken a nearly 3am in the morning by the sound of a key in my door and the sound of someone grumbling about the 'stupid door'. I quickly pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and jumped up and opened the door causing the guy on the other side to jump out of his skin.
" Who are you" He demanded. My response was " At this time of the morning I think a better question is who r u"
" But your in my room" He declared, making me wonder if they had been a terrific screw up. But I then saw his keys and realized he had misread the flat and floor number as the room number. When I pointed this out he quickly mumbled a apology and legged it down the hallway to his room obviously worried that he had made a rather bad impression on me. Which he hadn't in hindsight it was quite funny because if it had been anywhere else my first thought would have been that drink was involved. Which it hadn't been. Or at least I hope it hadn't been or that would have been a whole other problem. He, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

Well I woke up in time for breakfast and headed to the 'tower' lobby, this was a halls of residence 18 floors high, I was half expecting quozemoto to be living on the top floor. " Master, master the YSA, YSA!" Well I waited in the lobby for MT, and waited and waited and waited. I finally got annoyed at all the waiting and remembered that mobiles r good for something else besides txting and decided to call him. It did sound like I was getting a answer from beyond the grave and he was still in bed and wasn't going to get up for breakfast. So off I trotted fro breaky by myself :-( It was still good although I didn't run into anyone from Leicester. ( breakfast was on for a hour and there were three different dining rooms, so with nearly 900 YSA on campus the chances of meeting someone for breakfast without actually planning it were astronomically high). Breakfast was your typical fried breakfast and cereal. I had milk for a drink to go with breakfast as I couldn't see anything else apart from orange juice. The orange and lemon cordial drinks were in the powered drinks machines which were about 2 foot high, with giant see through containers on top and making a humming sound. Easy to miss. Honestly. Oh wait D'ohhh!!!!

I wandered over to the armitage centre for the morning devotional. There weren't enough chairs so I ended up sitting on the floor, which after a while got very uncomfortable. It's something I always thought peculiar that why is it when bits like your legs or feet go numb it hurts? Isn't that a ridicululous contradiction in terms? That something goes numb and it hurts. But it may have had something to do with the fact that I was wearing my boots as I didn't know what the service project was going to be about. So my lower left leg and foot went completely numb. Very, very weird feeling to be able to wriggle the toes on one foot but not the other, or at least feel that you weren't. Etc, you get the idea. The devotional was very good although I did find the number of YSA coming in late especially amusing, I think they need to add alarm clocks to the list of things you need to take :-)

So the service project was making Christmas gift boxes to be distributed by the Samaritans I think. We made 500 so go us! I actually felt quite pleased with my effort and I helped make a whole lotta boxes up, with S's help. Although it must have been that in their desire to be part of the service project most YSA forgot other things such as their manners when they were trying to get hold of the contents for their boxes. Seriously it was a scrum!!!!! Despite that it was a whole lotta fun and it was nice to do a service project as I can't remember the last time we did one. Oh wait, something's happening, I think It's called a idea, long time since I had one of those :-) Oh I know it's a suggestions for C and M.R. MT turned up mid morning unfortunately his brother was ill and had gone home. We also discovered a problem pretty quickly that with 870 YSA on site we had emptied the vending machines very, very quickly. Fortunately I had got a few bits at the garage on the way up so it wasn't a complete disaster for me, but I would start to get heartily sick of just plain water by the end of the weekend. I think I'll take cordial with me next year :-)

So it was lunchtime which prompted a very large queue which we were stuck in for a very long while. It didn't help that there was a large percentage of YSA pushing into the queue, but we got our lunch soon enough, which did lead me to ponder why near enough all pre packaged chicken sandwiches some with stuffing. Why? why? Wouldn't it just be easier to have plain chicken? And cheaper coz who wants to eat cold stuffing. Seriously though if anyone knows let me know? However the packed lunch was good and it was a very nice lunch too sitting outside. It was blazing sunshine, but it wasn't cold or rainy either. It was just a very nice balance. I was talking to SL and J with some other Leicesterites when he noticed I had a red holder for my pass but a green LED keyring. So he wondered if I had swapped groups. Which I hadn't, I had just been given a green led with a red holder. I felt so sorry for him from the look on his face when he heard this as you could see he realized that despite his hard work in getting the keyrings they were being given out randomly. Oops. :-)