Knock, knocking, knocking on Saxons door

We've started refering to Owen as Grumpys 'shadow'. He will follow him everywhere round the house, even if Grumpy has only got up to put a dirty plate in the Kitchen Owen will still jump up and follow him in there and straight back again. Now admitally this used to be amusing but it's not so funny early in the morning. Mainly because he will follow Grumpy to the toilet and sit out on the landing waiting for him with his tail wagging as hard as possible. However his favourite place is sitting right in front of my door so I keep getting woken up by a loud knocking on my door which always confuses me as I'm never sure if it's Grumpy or Owen's tail!

Two big news items of the day. First is Bosslady has just announced that she is coming back to the UK to visit over Christmas. So along with Sian that's two people finally coming back to visit. All we need now is the other Sian and Nemesis and the set would be complete :-)

Second item, Top secret project two has finally come out into the light of day as it were. Top secret project two was a going away present I was making for Engineseer, whose efforts to slip away quietly into the night were blown good and proper by yours truely today. Basically it was a book and when I say book I mean a 'real book' not a scrapbook, of all of the photos I have taken over the past two years at various YSA activities. A nice little something for him to remember us by.

Church today was okay. It seemed very long though for some reason. I suppose my patientice wasn't helped by everyone going on about how good the new programmes were and how nice they looked. Of course I had nothing to do with these new programmes in fact I'm not sure where they came from and I never wanted to do the bulletins in a 'simple format' in the first place. sigh I guess I will just grin and bear it and keep faith that those highers up do know what their doing, even if the whole pictures not obivous to me.

Oh well it's the start of a new week tomorrow. Hopefully things will go smoothly as it's starting to get very busy as we are now only two weeks away from that time of year where I get to see that Sunday mornings do exist before 8am.

argghhh.....

later folks!

Well at least someone found it amusing

We've just been watching NCIS which is one of my fav shows on the TV right now. However in tonights episode they came out with the line
" What's a blog?"
" Oh it something loosers put on the internet"
Of course Grumpy immediately starts cackling away and hasn't stopped giggling since.

Oh well It has been on of these evenings. It seems that the bishopric want the ward bulletin format to change. Instead of keeping with the very simply bulletin which they insisted I do they have now printed off 5000 yes you read that correctly programs for the bulletin information to be printed on. Now two things spring to mind here. One why they did this and not mention it to me at all and I have to find out three hand from the person who got these things printed and second are they expecting me to keep them all at home? I don't have room to keep 5000 of the flipping things. Not to mention Grumpy would probably hit the roof if I tried too. I guess I'll just have to have faith and trust that they know what their doing.

Asides from it being one of those evenings it's been a pretty quiet day. There was the usual shopping, fish and chips for lunch and not doing much all afternoon.

Not that interesting I know.

sorry :-)

Sense of time, what's that then?

I have to admit that right now my sense of time is completly screwed up. Usually it's easy to keep track of the week, Monday comes it start of work. Friday comes end of work, Saturday is shopping and Sunday is church. Fairly easy isn't it? But the last two weeks I've had a week off, my Birthday, then conference, then back to work on Tuesday followed by a half day today and now it's the weekend again! When I woke up this morning I really had to think as to what day it is was!

Still hopefully it will be fixed soon before I go crazy. Or crazier, take your pick as applicable to your opinion :-)

The game I palyed againist Engineseer this afternoon was remarkably inconclusive and ended as a Draw. We're going to try and fit in another game before he leaves.

Top secret project one is coming along very nicely now and I should get the first chunk of it finished in time. Top secret project two has now arrived and I can't say a word about that one either or I will totally and I mean totally spoil the surprise. So keep your eyes peeled for the next couple of weeks for when I can talk about it!

Well it's the weekend now, time to relax and try to have some fun.

Later folks!

Life after conference

Well that took me longer then I anticipated to write up about conference. It's amazing how much I managed to do that weekend. It was only when I was writing it all down that I realised just what I managed to fit in.

Of course on Tuesday it was back to earth as it were as I had to head back to work. Of course due to me taking a week of Holiday and the bank Holiday I was anticipating a whole lot of work to do. But I was wrong. Although I had a fair amount of stuff to wade through it wasn't that bad and I was able to get fairly caught up with things by the end of the Day which wasn't bad going at all I thought.

The benefits of clearing the garage out were made apparent on Tuesday night when Engineseer came round to drop some stuff off for us to store for a couple of weeks before his parents come over. Yes Geektown is now less geeky as Engineseer and Black Widow have moved out. However before they moved out they needed some help with some cleaning up. Rather a lot of cleaning up as a matter of fact. Worried that Engineseer would be up to the early hours I asked Grumpy if he would be willing to come and lend a hand and he did. We worked on cleaning the kitchen for him and we were quite impressed with ourselves when we finished. It was hard work but Engineseer treated us to some food so that made the work all the more satisfying :-)

Owen wasn't sure what to make of Engineseer and Black Widow when they came round and into our house. We realised later that they were actually the first visitors to the house since we've had Owen over a month ago. Which Grumpy in a deadpan voice said didn't reflect well on us if we didn't have any visitors in over a month!

Due to me getting the date of the conference wrong when I booked my Holidays several months ago I now have a random half days Holiday tomorrow. So I will be taking on Engineseer in a rematch at Warhammer world. Can my Orks win out a second time or will the Tau have there revenge? Be sure to turn in tomorrow...

Okay now this sounds like a TV show :-)

And we're also getting closer to that time of the year where thanks to work I get to see that 5am on a Sunday morning really does exist. Arrgghhhh.. Oh well at least it only comes once a year.

Right I guess that's all for today.

See you tomorrow folks (and I know at least some of you are still out there. Google Anayltics says so :-)

later!

YSA Conference: Going Home

It was time to go home whether I liked it or not. As much as I had enjoyed myself it was time to load up the car and head to geektown. I packed my stuff and then went searching for my new aquaintences, making sure to say goodbye to each of them. Now I'm sure your wondering why I've been calling them aquaintences, well I'm not sure if in the time we had I could say for definite that I had become definite friends with any of them but I like to think I have laid some firm foundations that I could build on in future.

I headed for home after dropping my keys off. The advantage of driving by yourself is you can sing as loud as you want without getting funny looks from anyone else. Well in the car at least. It allowed me a moment of reflection about the weekends events. I had been worried to begin with but my fears had proved to be unfounded. I had, had a great time. If not the best time of any of the three conferences I had been too. Sure I would have loved for my close friends to be there, but being by myself had helped me put more effort into meeting new people and it had worked. I think I can safely say I met more new people at this conference then the past two. It seems the University Saxon who was able to speak to new people with confidence and make friends easier and be more confident in himself is still in here somewhere after all.

I pulled onto the drive at home exactly three days and five minutes after I had pulled out of it. After sorting out my gear I found a nice surprise. Not only had I made friends enough with someone to swap email addresses, someone else had added me to their facebook friends list. It seems I had made some new friends after all.

Thanks for staying with me folks. Thats as they say is that about YSA conference for another year

YSA conference 2008 day 4: The Beginning of the end

I woke up with a feeling of regret Monday morning. Not for anything that had happened but more regret that in a few short hours it would all be over. After a quick shower I headed out for my last breakfast.
However despite a generous serving by the staff even a fried breakfast seemed incapable of waking me up. Only have five hours sleep was not proving to be a good thing. I decided drastic times called for drastic measures and after a quick trip back to the car downed two cans of leaded pepsi. It started to have the trick and I began to wake up, of the caffine headache would probably come back and hit me later but c'est la vie.

I headed back to my room to begin packing whilst being past by several 18 year olds who from their conversation had been up all night but weren't tired. In fact they looked like they had downed a crate of red bull apiece. B'ahh, maybe I am getting old.

After the devotional the YSA spread out across the campus to do a quick service project by helping clear litter.
It was then back to the centre for the closing cermony. Which was ala "last night of the proms" The choir sang a song from each of the countries in the UK then the audience joined in. This round robbin was bought to a close by a rousing rendition of callled to serve.
We had barely finished singing when the choir conductor revealed a surprise as this guy entered the hall and played a incredible five minute set.
Following the bagpipe music everyone was up for a repeat ofthe round robin and everyone got to their feet, belting out the songs with passion and the final rendition of called to serve was simply to awesome to put into words.

Then suddenly with the closing prayer that was it.

It was all over

YSA Conference Day 3/4: The Logical Logics

When we want to be YSA can be surprisingly logical (no really) especially when it comes to getting our own way. This usually comes into play on the Sunday night of conference if the organisers say that we should all be in bed by Midnight on Saturday as that’s the start of the Sabbath, then on the stroke of midnight Sunday it’s the end of the Sabbath and it’s playtime : - ) I suppose the organiser could always choose to crack down on this one of these years but I doubt it. You can’t have it both ways and there’s probably nothing worse then a bunch of YSA who decide to be awkward.

Usually what happens is as soon as it's Midnight the YSA head out of the campus and hit the takeaways. So as it wasn't quite midnight I joined the general throng of YSA milling around waiting for the time to tick away.
Almost immediatly I missed my best chance to use a cheesy James bond like line ever. A girl was bounding around introducing herself to all and sundry. She came up to me and announced " Hi My names Totty!" I managed to keep a straight Face and placed it safe when I replied " Pleased to meet you" when what I intially was going to say was " Yes you certainly are." :-)
Now while we were hanging around a girl started putting on a display using these things. Now I say things as I have no idea what their called. The best way I can describe them is that they are two globes which contain lights that change colour, attached to two elastic bits of rope. It was an amazing display and she was very talented. I tried taking a photo with the flash but it didn't work too well. I turned the flash off and got the two great photos you can see above.

As the time ticked closer to Midnight the YSA started to drift up towards the main square. I was walking up there when a group of YSA walked round the corner. It was quite literally a guy with three girls on each arm! They were laughing and joking with their arms linked. The Guy was looking quite pleased with himself and I could understand why. I wouldn't have minded three girls on each arm. Heck I wouldn't have minded one but I digress.

They walked past me and were taking pictures of themselves. At which point one of the girls said how cool it would be if they got a picture of them from behind so the girls could see how their asses (their word not mine) looked like when they walked. So she turned to me and said
" Can you please take a picture of all our (pointing to all six girls) asses whilst we walk?"
I Paused then replied
" Well that's not the kind of request I was expecting to hear this weekend but far from for me not to help a lady"
At which point all the girls collapsed into hysterics and I wondered if I could do this without looking the creepyist guy ever.

Midnight came and we headed out for food. To our complete amazement Dominios choose to shut rather then stay open. So goodness knows how much money they lost out on with several hundred YSA looking for food.

After examing the options I only found food I liked in one take away. The completely orginal and I'm sure in no way inspired by KFC, Kruncy Fried chicken.

Heading back onto campus I ran into K and LP who were from the far end of the stake and sat with them to eat my food whilst they chomped away on Pizza. I smiled and considered the fact that this was definatly turning into the most interesting early mornings I had experienced.

A lot of YSA seemed to have energy to burn and several impromtu games started

A rendition of the pony game/song from EFY also started to mine and K's displeasure as it is a throughly annoying song. I pondered aloud what security made of that and our general hyperactive behaviour. Someone pointed out that they were probably used to strange behaviour as other conferences were held at the site on a regular basis. But I countered with that any weird behaviour at them was down to alchol. What was our excuse?

K was still hungry at this point and wanted Ice cream strangly enough. So we went to find a shop and actually found one still open at 1am in the morning. She went in and came out with a tub of Hagan Daz and strangly enough 100 hundred plastic spoons as they didn't sell them in bags which were any smaller.

We wandered back onto the site again and joined other YSA milling around. At which point a sing along started as a guitar had appeared.

Which included such varied songs as Sweet Home Alabama, Breakfast at Tiffanys and All the same things!
Pretty soon a sensation of burning eyes began to indicate to me how late it was. Or would that be how early it was? I've never sure at that time in the morning. Mindful of the fact that I would be driving home alone with no one to keep me awake I decided it was a good time to retire to bed. I think I got back to my room at around 2.30am and I was asleep almost the instant my head touched the pillow.

It had been a very, very good day

It's time for the Finale

For those of you just joined us your really, really late! You’ve missed parts one and two.

We left our hero (again that’s me, modest I know and I also appear to have developed the ability to talk about myself in the third person Can you smell what the Saxon is writing? : - ) Having survived a first day of westerns, a second day of some real lows and some highs and a third day of even greater highs. Battling through our hero has avoided some obstacles in his path in the form of dismissive girls, an injured shoulder, even nastier girls and over enthusiastic self defence practisers. He has reached some spiritual highs, faced down some demons and found himself making some new friends. Filled with a feeling of peace and a goofy smile fixed on his face can our hero survive his final challenge and make it through to day four, the challenge of the YSA in the Early hours….


Read on dear reader, read on…..

Tune in for the final installment

Tune in for the final installment tomorrow of the YSA 2008 conference report

YSA Conference Day 3 Evening: Ramming that foot on in there

Of course if my humour and charmingness (wait I don’t think that’s a word oh well) were on top form during dinner they seemed to fail me spectacularly whenever I spoke to RN (who used to go to uni in Leicester) sister N, and it wasn’t a case of me jamming my foot in my mouth it was more of a case of ramming both feet firmly down my throat. Which probably was to do with the fact she couldn’t get my sense of humour at all. R on the other hand found it quite hysterical to watch. Oh well at least someone was enjoying themselves.

Getting back to the Centre we quickly found ourselves some seats in time for the start of the Fireside. Elder Kerr one of the Area authorities and his wife were speaking which made an interesting (wow I’m using that word a lot) change from Elder Johnson. It was a brilliant Fireside and you could really feel the spirit from the very start when there was a wonderful musical item.

After the fireside it was time for the Testimony meetings which were a highlight for many last year and many people were looking forward to again this year. We were spilt into groups again and my group (the blues) found itself in the one of the smaller rooms downstairs.

Now for some reason I get very nervous speaking in front of large crowds in a ‘official sense’ as it were, which is one of the reasons I was getting nervous when I gave that talk a few weeks ago in Loughborough. I wasn’t intending to get up but the spirit was just so strong and my heart was just hammering away I just knew I had to get up and bear my testimony.

I’m not sure what I said but I can say I meant it. When I sat down I felt such a feeling of peace and I could still feel the spirit there and for the looks on everybody elses face I knew I wasn’t alone in feeling that peace and spirit. That might sound a bit cliché but I’ve been thinking for ages and I really can’t put into words any better what I was feeling at that point.

All too soon the Testimony meeting came to an end. I really wouldn't have minded if it went on for another hour (even with those uncomfortable seats). But our time was limited as the staff who ran the centre needed to get home. So a large group of YSA began to gather and talk outside. I ran into the American girl from dinner who was talking with N and started chatting with them. However our conversation did get somewhat curtailed as some of her friends came over and started to talk to her included one lad who proceeded to have a indepth conversation with her about the history of the EU. I couldn't believe my conversation had been interupted by the one guy at the conference who could outgeek me on history.

but after the day I had, had I couldn't get mad about it. I just went to my room giggling to myself about the irony. I had finally been outgeeked on something!

Although if I had gone round to corner to find a guy talking about GW to a girl in great depth I was perfectly ready to start a fight to the death complete with Kirk versus spock music in the car park. GW Geekettes are hard to find.

Of course the flaw with that plan was that I realised was that I didn't have the Kirk versus spock music. Of course I then realised that was far from the only flaw with that plan and again collapsed into a fit of the giggles whilst getting changed imaging the kind of the report that the organisers would have to write if that did happen!

I headed out of my room with a big ear to ear grin. Things were great.

YSA Conference Day 3 afternoon: Patiently Patient

But there was a little time before they began so I took the opportunity to sneak back to my room for a quick nap as based on what happened last year I was fairly sure I would be needing the sleep!

Later Walking back to the centre I ran into a few more of the acquaintances I had made from the previous afternoon and was able to have a few quick chats with them, which did really start to help my confidence as not only had they been speaking to me the previous day they were still speaking to me! Which did lead me to reflect that the me from university who found it quite easy to talk to people and make Friends was still in there somewhere. My closest friends might not be around but I was sure that was helping push me out of my comfort zone and talk to people. As I’ve said in previous years the worst they could do was tell me to push off and what do you know. I was right! That would have been the worst but the worst never happened :-)

It was pretty much a standard Sunday afternoon activities as there were several workshops running in various rooms. I decided to go to the one by Julian Jones thinking I had left plenty of time to get a good sit with ten minutes to spare. I got a nasty shock however when I got up to the conference room as it was already full to bursting. My guess is there was nearly 200 YSA already in there. As there was no microphone it was quite hard to hear him and lots of people started to leave deciding to come to the 2nd session. I however decided to play a waiting game and as people started to leave I was slowly able to move up the room. I actually ended up halfway up the room where it was a lot easier to hear him. Plus it was a good example in why patience is a good attribute.

After the workshops it was time for a ‘church history musical’ which sounded interesting even if I had no idea what it would entail. I was walking to the main hall when someone came up to me and introduced themselves and with that it meant that for the first time in three years I had actually met someone who was on the same corridor as me in the halls. He noticed I was alone and invited me to come and sit with him and his friends during the musical. Which was nice as its much more fun in these sort of activities to be able to sit with someone rather then by yourself.

The Musical was ‘interesting’ and for once I’m not using that term in a sarcastic way. It was a lot of fun as well as the members who were performing it were giving it there all. The guy from my hall asked me if I would ever take part in something like that. I answered with a grin that I knew where my talents lie and it’s sure as heck not in singing. I prefer to leave that to people who can actually sing. I did try to take some photos but the trouble was we were so far away from the stage they came out all blurry. Which was a shame as some of the costumes and inventiveness they had to use ( especially in portraying Goliath) were very good (and very funny).

After the musical it was time for Dinner and one plus side of not having any close friends there was I didn’t have to wait for anybody so I was able to tear across campus to the dining rooms as fast as possible letting me get very near the front of the queues. Of course with it being a Sunday and all the guys in suits and white shirts and all the girls in their Sunday dresses the two food choices we had were possibly the worst ones you want. That’s right we had a choice of Pasta with Red Source or Roast Beef with Gravy. Which meant most YSA were eating whilst leaning as far forward as possible and also as carefully as possible.

R was behind me a few places in the queue so came and sat with me for dinner which was nice as I was getting fed up of eating by myself. So we had a good chat over our dinner as we swapped stories and see if we knew any YSA the other knew, a YSA version of six degrees. He asked after Traveller and Sian again and said he hadn’t seen Sian in nearly two years. When I mentioned she had gone to the USA two years ago he smiled and laughed saying that was at least one question answered.

We were then joined by two very nice girls from down south who were part of the choir who decided to sit with us and introduced themselves. One was American too. So what was a really good dinner turned into an even better one as nothing improves dinner like having Female company.

I was feeling quite pleased with myself by this point as I was starting to find it easier and easier to talk to new people by this point as my old confidence seemed to be coming back. And for once my terrible sense of humour seemed to be improving as I was telling some funny stories and the girls were laughing and I’m sure it was with me not at me. Which after the events of Saturday was especially nice. So I’d like to think I made a good impression and was charming. Of course I might be totally wrong but for once let me keep my delusions

YSA Conference Day Day 3 morning: Dressing Down and Dressing up

I was awake a long time before my alarm went off. Only having one pillow was really starting to get uncomfortable and it wasn’t helping my shoulder pain in the slightest. But on the plus side whilst laying that (As it was too early for Breakfast) I was able to reflect on my own time at university and feel immensely grateful that my rooms in my Uni’s halls of residence were much nicer and bigger. The room I was in was okay for three days but I think I would probably go mental if I had to live in them for a whole year.

I wondered across to breakfast in some ‘smart clothes’ i.e a polo shirt, trousers and shoes rather then Jeans and t-shirt as it was Sunday morning after all. I wondered if I show wear my suit but decided against it as I would be wearing it for the rest of the day plus wearing it whilst trying to eat a cooked breakfast with ketchup and beans would have been asking for trouble of the highest order.

Of course when I arrived in the Dining Hall I felt a little underdressed as lots of guys were already in there wearing suits and ties. Fortunately a group came in just behind me which included several girls wearing sweat shirts over their pyjamas and you can’t get more underdressed then that.

Oh right well you can but lets not go there shall we.

After Breakfast I had yet more free time as there was no Priesthood session this year, so the conference session didn’t start until 10am. When I wondered across to the centre for the session I took great pains to keep an eye out for our Stake President so I could try to avoid him before the session as I didn’t want to get caught out like CP did last year.

It was a interesting conference session as rather then two or three ‘long talks’ there were several ‘short talks’ instead. I also noticed that without Elder Johnson there, the Manchester Stake President was presiding.

Halfway through the session the hall started to reverberate with the very loud sound of rain hitting the halls roof. It had been turning cloudy earlier but it now looked like the weather had definitely taken a turn for the worse!

After the session finished it was time for Lunch. Most of the guys in the hall mindful of the problems with queuing the previous day legged it outside as fast as possible. It was almost a case of, *Blink* and every priesthood holder in the room vanished.

Now you have to admit that would be one heck of a magic trick.

It seemed the organisers had learned from the previous days lunch and spilt the boxes into several ‘smaller tables’ which meant everyone wasn’t having to queue in the same place, which meant things went a lot more smoothly. I looked outside to see that the rain had stopped as soon as it had started and blue skies were once more overhead. The Grass was too wet to sit on but you could lean against the wall and have your lunch that way.

It was at this point I met another next acquaintance. R who was attending his last conference as it was ‘retiring’ from the YSA ( he’s 31). We had quite a pleasant Lunch chatting and when he noticed I was from Loughborough asked after Sian . I found this quite amusing as I don’t know what it is about Loughborough but lots of people seem to know the other YSA (or former YSA) from the ward. So I seemed to be rapidly turning into the “ Do you know guy” which was a least a better thing to be known as opposed to say “ Geeky looser in the corner by himself” I’m sure you’ll agree.

With Lunch finished it was time for the Afternoons activities.

The YSA Conference report part 2

For those of you just joining our story. Your late! Where were you yesterday?

:-)

Okay a quick recap when we left our Hero ( that's me by the way, did I mention I was modest too) at the conference it was the end of Saturday. Alone and far from home, our hero had taken struggled and reeled from two nasty blows but with help from a unexpected corner he had got back up and kept going. Making the exciting discovery he could infact talk to new people without boring them to Death, he had finished the day on a high and was keyed up and ready for day three.

and now the story continues!

Tune in tomorrow

Tune in tomorrow folks, for the Day 3 and day 4 report from this years YSA Conference

YSA Conference Day 2 Evening: Dictionary to the main halls stat!

I was heading back to my room when I came across a group of YSA who were messing around in the main square, one of the guys was teling people whilst pointing to one of the girls

" This girl is evil, oxidise her, oxidise her!"
I paused and looked at him
" You want us to expose her to oxygen?" ( and before anyone jumps down my throat I know thats probably not the right definition) The guy paused
" Wait what?"
" Your asking us to oxidise her?"
" What word do I mean?"
" Try ostracise"


I walked away with a grin on my face pleased that maybe, just maybe I can teach the younger YSA a thing or two. I was almost at my hall when I ran into E one of the students who goes to Loughborough University and will be back at the end of September. She had managed to massivily confuse me the previous night because she has grown her hair and died it blonde so she looks completely different and so I didn't recognise her so I had no idea who this blonde girl was walking down the road towards me waving at me. I met a couple of her friends so that made five new aquaintences in one day! I think more then the other conferences combined. Maybe I could get the hang of this talking to new people and making friends. Plus they were talking to me back which to be honest was a much needed boost of confidence at that point.




After a quick chance it was time for dinner. I got into the queue for the dining room quite near the front fortunatly as it grew very rapidly behind me!

It seemed that this year they had decided to forgo the traditional BBQ and go with a 'standard' meal. Now I'll say 'standard meal' because to be perfectly honest I still have no idea what it was. It was some sort of pasta something, but beyond that I have no idea.

I was only able to eat a bit of it though as it was not good.

With two hours to spare before the start of the ball though I did have a option and yes you guessed it. It was time for another visit to Engineseers brand of generic high street resturant. Which also meant I had two free glasses after that visit. But again as usual I digress.

It did also show a interesting difference between Males and Females. A lot of girls were fretting that two hours was not enough time to get ready in time. Me I was able to go to get something to eat, read a book, take a shower, polish my shoes and still have ten minutes spare to get ready. Mind you I'm not sure why I spent all that time polishing my shoes as people don't really look at shoe do they, but at least I was making a effort.

I got to the dance and the band had already started exactly on time. The refreshments for the Summer ball were 'interesting' in as much as they weren't your typical refreshments. Someone had obivousily decided as YSA we wanted something that tasted nice and would give us lots of energy.

So the trays of refreshments were just trays of sweets ( best comic book guy voice) best refreshments ever!

In previous years they have hired dodgems for just outside the centre. This year they hired a big wheel instead!

The ball was a lot of fun as always with a live band and lots of dancing

The only downside was it finished at 11pm. They were still very strict about wanted us all in bed by midnight! But at least this year they didn't quote scripture.

Just before the end of the Ball I noticed the guy I had met in the self defence class was sitting at the top of the steps in the sports centre foyer clinging onto the railing and looking like he was about to burst into tears. So I sat down and had a chat with him, ironically it turned out he had many of the same fears and worries I had. Talking about not meeting a girl, how he thought people were judging him and he was running out of time. I was a bit surprised he had that viewpoint as it was his first conference and he was only 22. I managed to cheer him up a bit when he mentioned that he was going to BYU and he was worried as he was English no one would talk to him. I pointed out that based on previous experiences with English people going to BYU he was more likely going to have a problem with too many people trying to talk to him and was going to be beating them off with a stick.

I made my way back to my room feeling on quite a high, despite two serious knocks I had made several new aquaintances, been able to help someone else and was feeling very focussed for the day ahead after the devotional at the end of the ball as a guy had sung an amazing song and the spirit in that room was just so powerful when he had finished

Things were good