You might have noticed I’ve itched for this moment since I got to university, but I reluctantly reset the keycard to my room at Royal Holloway.  If anyone’s living in Tuke F-3A-05 in future, and you happen to stumble across this post, look underneath the desk next to the bed, and you should see a small sticker.  Nick Stylianou 2008-2009.  I like leaving my mark.  I’ll miss that room!

But before I crammed everything into my car and drove home far too hungover and with far little petrol to justifiably make it home, I can’t believe how much I’d achieved in the short months I’d been at university, but still, there were a a few little things to finish off my final term of being a first year.

First of all: the Summer Ball!  I made it right through to 6am, with the help of far too many shots right up until breakfast.  I’m a survivor, me.

Then came my final bit of publicity for The Orbital before the term was out – covering our first ever Shakespeare Festival!  Both InsanityRadio and The Orbital put on a ‘media hub’, culminating in a slideshow of our photos and live reviews, collated and displayed throughout the day, to a soundtrack of interviews from local students who attended the day’s workshops.  (Perks included the generous ‘Media Budget’, which helped subsidise some much needed equipment and I got free tickets to the rather chilly annual Quad Production…)

The Students’ Union Annual General Meeting ticked off another evening, and I found out I got onto the Intensive Shakespeare course and passed the year!  Full breakdown to follow in July, but that’s all the information I needed.

Somehow, while preparing for End Of Term Blowout, I managed to lose my CollegeCard.  I’d already managed to snap it earlier in the week, but it was replaced easily enough.  No big deal, or so I thought.  As it turned out, this was my third lock-out, which meant I had to pay the princely sum of £10 for a temporary card to last 24 hours!  It didn’t stop there, because I also managed to pack the temporary card and couldn’t find that, either.

Off I trotted to celebrate the end of term, with absolutely no way of getting home.  I managed to find someone at The Hub reception, at about twenty to six in the morning, without finishing packing, without sobering up, and without a sweater from sitting in the post-SU after-party in Founder’s Quad.  Whatever would my mother say?

Six hours later and I was back home, and if I’d learned anything it would have to be this: don’t fall asleep on the sofa with Saturday afternoon TV on.  I ended up having a wierdly erotic BBC renovation-themed dream involving RHUL.

Waking up in what I hope was a cold sweat, I found reruns of Dog The Bounty Hunter and all was well again.

I’m actually typing this on my iPhone, because I had to send in my beloved MacBook Pro to have its fan replaced.   I first discovered something was up when my usual torrenting of whichever Gilmore Girls season I didn’t yet have was accompanied by the sound of a tractor driving into the blades of a jet engine.  I know enough about Rory Gilmore to know that’s not normal.  Never fear, AppleCare was there to pick up the repair tab.

The Ambassador’s Theatre Group coupled with lastminute.com meant I went to see New Boy with Nicholas Hoult (Trafalgar Studios), I went to see La Cage Aux Folles starring Graham Norton (Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue) and I finally went to see On The Waterfront starring Stephen Berkoff (Theatre Royal, Haymarket).  I also hung around the Stage Door at each theatre like a groupie, collecting autographs like a seasoned fan. After studying Berkoff’s work during my A2 Drama & Theatre Studies syllabus, it was quite an experience to meet somewhat of a textbook idol.

Mr. Hoult, also known as thatguyfromskinsyouknowtheonewhat’shisnameohmygodTonythat’sit, was annoyingly charming. I’m just jealous.  I was a little disappointed with the production, though, which was in a tiny, tiny studio, showcasing none of the classical theatre-acting traits I wanted to see the actors cope with.

Mr. Norton was a bit smaller than I anticipated (although not as short as when I met Dawn French), yet my mum still managed to compliment the lead actor on his ‘lovely legs’, of which we saw a lot during the performance, seeing as there was a lot of drag-queen activity involved.

Mr. Berkoff casually dresses in oddly ghetto-subculture attire.  Think slack trousers and a large gold gangster hoodie. He also drives a Volkswagen Beetle.  I found this all so surprising that I missed out on an obvious Metamorphosis-jibe about his choice of vehicle.

No, actually, my night-time London pursuits didn’t stop there. I also went clubbing at 54London‘s Commercial Street venue, on one of their monthly Light nights.  That just sounds like another set  of buzzwords, doesn’t it?  To be honest, you’re probably right.  Along with two friends (Sahar & Morgan), I was there from 11pm until about 7:15am.  We’d had dinner and been to the pub beforehand, so by the time it came to leaving the venue, we were pretty worse for wear.  Not to mention Morgan and I were a little sick of the last-gasp attempts for the sexuality-questionable 95% male population of the venue to locate a breakfast mate.

The shock to the system upon seeing the bright light of day and hearing the sudden absence of a DJ in London’s East End meant it was probably time to go home.  Walking with Sahar to Aldgate East tube station, Morgan and I decided we were hungry.  Not realising that it was now 7.30 in the morning, we walked down the entire length of Mile End Road.  To find nothing open but ‘Billy’s 24hr…’ roadside shack.  Morgan chanced a ‘survivor bap’ from this one-man-stand while I decided I wasn’t that peckish after all.  The good news is that Morgan hasn’t got E.Coli. Yet.

Oh, and in a fit of SURHUL-inspired despair, we sort of broke into Queen Mary, University of London’s campus and tried to get into their spankingly-pretty Students’ Union building.  It was locked.  Now time to go our separate ways, I found that there were even fewer services operating on Sunday morning from Mile End than there were from Aldgate East almost an hour previously.  With my hatred in Transport for London renewed, sitting on the red-eyed Tube with various other shameful ‘shouldn’t-be-up-this-early-in-the-morning-normally-don’t-ask-me-where-I’ve-been’ citizens, that was the end of another chapter.

With some thrilling sights posted to Flickr entitled In which I discover the early-morning East End, (all ofwhich seemed far more fascinating at the time) and the everlasting quest to reach a photo-a-day in How I Spent April 2009,  I can safely say I don’t really want to post something this long from the iPhone WordPress client ever again.  Proofreading was…problematic.  Twitter‘s certainly on to something with a 140 character limit.

Sitting alone in the flat seems to be a habit of mine, and I’m still no sure whether I’m an agoraphobic sociopath or just plain lazy.  Let’s hope it’s the latter, eh?  Yeah, that’ll be it.  Probably.  Oo-err.

SURHUL have had another elections season, this time for the Executive Committee.  Politics, at even the base student level, simply exposes the fallacies of a finite term in any office.  Student volunteers in a part-time position for less than one solid year?  There’s going to be little ‘change we can believe in‘ at Royal Holloway.  Prove me wrong! (Please?)

Oh, our Principal has resigned.  Did you hear that?  No surprise, most of my student brethren are apathetic, or didn’t even know who the Principal was in the first place.  Either Egham is a black hole of activism or I’m just plugged in to everything to avoid my degree – oh, that’ll be it.  Nick Stylianou, the information sponge?

The end of term – this mean’s I’ve submitted all of my essays and now look forward to three exams in April/May.  Wonderful.  Seeing as my timed essays were slightly better than mediocre (i.e. suitable enough to pass the year), glorious complacency will no doubt set in.  I’m looking forward to the last-minute stress overload.  “Fuck it, 40%” seems to be the 2009 mantra.

So now I’m officially Editor of the SURHUL Publication for a year.  Let’s see what this new chapter has in store for me, shall we?  It’ll give me a bit more to do than sporadic theatre trips, wishing I was abroad while constantly refreshing lastminute.com flights and trundling around the Guildford/Godalming area in Fifi listening to Fall Out Boy.  I’ll be ringing up print companies for quotes, firing up Adobe InDesign, replying to bizarre press releases and begging for interviews and free tickets.

You probably skipped over the bizarre press releases bit.  Oh, Nick, he’s always exaggerating. No, really, among all the NUS statements, new music circulars, occasional DVD screeners, I received a press release about ‘condoms for dogs’.  Mmhmm.

Condoms.  For dogs.

Needless to say, I deleted it, but not immediately.  It required further investigation.  Sadly, it didn’t garner any adequate responses.  Do you have to apply it to the dog when it becomes aroused?  Do you have to play ‘wingman’ to your dog when he’s out on the pull, diving in when he’s just about to get his little doggy-groove on to suppress that unwanted puppy pregnancy?  Or do you staple this contraption permanently on your canine friend, producing horrifically explosive and unimaginable retrograde results?

These aren’t questions that keep me up at night, thank God.

I can always rely on my hobbies to nicely tick over and aid my time-wasting:  I’m still taking a photo a day, which surprises even myself sometimes.  I’m occasionally getting up in the morning and even the weather’s brightening up.  I’m definitely having some sort of identity crisis….

This is what I’m doing at any one time.  But for now,  I’ve got to pack my car up to go home.  Three weeks of MarioKart Wii-playing a-hoy!  I will beat you.  Waluigi is a master of karting disaster.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I told you I’ve been horrendously busy, so a quick recap?  I got a few poorly-written essays back, with poor marks.  I went to Societies’ Ball.  I didn’t win either of the two awards I was nominated for.  I didn’t have a very good evening.  I resigned from The Founder.

Why?  Because I decided to climb that greasy pole. Sure, it sounds like I haven’t had a good few weeks.  Whinge whinge, moan moan.

It’s been SURHUL elections season.

I ran for SU Publication Editor, commonly referred to as Editor of The Orbital.  I won.

Through stress and strain, with the help of a faithfully lovely set of campaign aides, canvassing in the freezing cold and snow, I won.

After Candidates’ Question Time, being grilled more than flaming beef, I won.

I was uncontested, but I didn’t want to seem arrogant, so I campaigned hard.  I didn’t enter the elections to gain power or accolade.  I wanted to change the SU publication into something better.  And restore faith to something I felt had massive potential.  I put my heart and soul into my speech for Candidates’ Question Time.  Maybe I didn’t smile enough.  Maybe I was too stern.  I was worried about portraying myself badly.  I think, unnaturally, I was tense.  Not nervous, just tense.  I didn’t repeat my manifesto verbatim – copies were available at the ballot boxes, online and on request.  I worked hard on something which was mine and which was much more importantly honest.

Being Orbital Editor is more than just being any society president.  It also encompasses being the editor of the Student’s Union Publication. That’s not only a role encompassing commitment and professionalism, but it also requires a much larger responsibility to all the students of Royal Holloway: (and that’s) trust.

The editor of the Guardian on its 100th birthday, CP Scott, famously wrote ‘comment is free, but facts are sacred’.
It’s that trust which needs to be upheld by whoever is chosen as editor, and for our facts to be relevant to an audience of over 8 000 students.  We need to understand and respond to the basic premise of campus media in the first place. Without a relevant publication, the publication ceases to exist.

Informing students in the best way possible may encompass a variety of formats and opinions, but it is imperative that we get a fundamentally coherent message across campus.

We’ve got a moral duty to deliver necessary information (and viewpoints) on which you can make a range of decisions about your union; as well as maintain a material existence.  The editor must operate both sides of the publication’s activity: it costs money to print, so I’ve got to make sure I can manage that. The trick is to find unity between the business and the message.  I feel I have the required skills to handle such a task, with valuable experience in enterprise and journalism.

The publication is, as Mr. Scott states: ‘an institution’.  It reflects and influences the life of a whole community – our community.
I want an informative Orbital:  the overwhelming majority of students I spoke to today look elsewhere to find out what’s happening on campus – that’s not just news, but reviews and opinion, too.

I want to improve how it’s running at the moment: online and in print.

But above all, I want to inspire students to read, write for and be proud of your publication. It is your publication. But I can’t start without gaining your trust.

But the lesson I’ve learned from this election season?  That I don’t like pigeon-holing.  I don’t like being categorised, or second-guessed.  I’m not just ‘that guy who doesn’t write for The Orbital’ or ‘that guy who’s clearly a new version of x’ or even ‘that arrogant wanker’.  My public persona takes a lot out of me.

Maybe it’s too much of Freud’s The Uncanny.  Or maybe I’m having an identity crisis?  I suppose if I knew certainly who I am, it would make it easier for me to know who I’m not.  How quintessentially adolescent.

This place is a little community.  And the problem with a cyclical little community is that there’s only enough change you can believe in before it all starts to sound the same.  Never mind about equality diversity, I’m talking about politics and sociology.  You’ve only got one chance to allow people to like you or dislike you.  And quite obviously it’s a pity there’s no answer booklet.  Now that’s pressure.  Especially since there’s only a finite amount of people here!

Forever incomplete.  And tomorrow I turn nineteen.  Maybe this time next year I’ll have more answers.  I’ll hopefully have a few successful tries under my belt by then.  And some issues of The Orbital.

“I’ve had better”.  That’s a phrase I’ve uttered numerous times since I’ve been back at university.  In case anyone thinks I was being my usual coy (read: cryptically, annoyingly-closed) self, it’s because my dad spent most of the winter break in hospital.  I think I was entitled to be a small misery guts, mmkay?  Christmas Day, however, was one of the few days which passed without a hitch. Congratulations to Team Stylianou!

So, to further elaborate on going home properly for the first time in many weeks: no washing up, no macaroni cheese ready meals….the ability to drive into Guildford town centre whenever I wanted…it was student bliss.

I’ve got a packed 2009, though.  After spending a New Year’s Eve with a select three friends and my mother (and my Wii), I decided I’d take at least one photo for every day of the new year.  A daunting, perhaps clichéd task?  Well, my reasoning was that it would force me to not only become horrifically familiar with my dSLR, but also seize control of my days and actually…do something. Eating and sleeping is now permanently fixed in my timetable, not an optional module for my time.  Not forgetting that I plan to merge the term ‘get involved’ and ‘Student’s Union’ to a new extreme.  From my QMUL visit to a Taboo party in Egham, my plan has worked so far.

Having said that my year was to be busy, campus is as dull as ever.  This greatly disappoints me.  Although I’m busy Monday-Friday with my course and various SU commitments, the amount of people who have left by 7pm on a Friday is tragic.  I’ve had an all-time high of three people (including myself) who have stayed the weekend in a flat of eight.  To take that average and place it in context, that’s roughly 37% of people who stay on campus and in Egham at the weekends. Ridiculous!  A new term would surely bring a change to this – we’re settled in, we’ve made friends.  Why, essentially, do people feel the need to commute to university if they have a place on campus!  I’m sorry, but this gets me riled up.  So much so, that I’m sitting in my flat, watching my home Sky+ streaming from my Slingbox.  Actually, that’s not too bad…

Check in to my flickr account, have a look at my eclectic(ly embarrassing) last.fm charts and hopefully I’ll be back more often with some personal gonzo journalism. I also accept unannounced campus visits, invitations to other universities and [love] letters.  This term?  I’m going to have a better one.

I spent a week-end fixing that laptop with the “broken soundcard”.  As it turns out, a small cable on the motherboard had fallen out of its correct socket, and I spent £50 for Disking Godalming to tell me nothing could be done and I bought an external soundcard, after taking it inter-railing with me.  However, the minute I have some spare time when I get back, I can fix it.  I want my money back.  Computer specialists my arse.

No fewer than 96 hours had I been in the UK, I ended up being invited to tea at The Ritz by my family, which was posh.  Nothin’ like some scones and cucumber sandwiches for three hours.  It certainly makes up for budget-pizzas in Belgrade.

Ah, and I went up to London on my own to get a 16Gb white iPhone, something Carphone Warehouse and O2 Guildford have never even heard of.  I then proceeded to screw up putting on the ill-fitting invisibleSHIELD, while my number was transferred a few days later.  Apart from my dirtily rough edges, it’s a great phone do-it-all device.  Apart from the dodgy 3G coverage, the lack of MMS, a built in tasks app and the learning curve on the keyboard.  Actually, the keyboard exceeded my expectations, so I’ll hush my mouth.

My friend Nick Manners’ surprise birthday party went without a hitch, too.  Unless you count him getting paralytically drunk and vomiting on people a hitch.  A good time was had by all, even the comatose.  Racing around the streets of Guildford in my newly-repaired Fifi rounded off another week.  Fifi being my car, and no, I didn’t break it, there was a manufacturer’s fault with the doors.

Seeing as I’m having a bit of a rant (I started this blog on the 14th and it was to be an eloquent, mildy-philosophical piece of web poetry, but now I’m tired and ratty…), I’d like to have a little bit of a go at the NHS.  I had an eye check-up appointment with my lovely doctor at the Royal Surrey County Hospital.  Except, I didn’t see my doctor, because due to some administrative cock-up, she wasn’t allowed to work.  I don’t know.  Anyway, I get told that I need to have my pupils dilated (something that I haven’t had since I was a short-sighted fidgety five year-old.), which is a non-negotiable procedure (good job I didn’t drive to the hospital, wasn’t it?) and I see a stand-offish doctor and another, unintroduced man in my examination room.  What is he doing there?  Why wasn’t he introduced?  I hardly had time to bring this to the attention of my “doctor” (well, I didn’t see any qualifications on the walls…) before my pupils were the size of dinner plates and the fluorescent lights felt as though they were burning into the very centre of my retinae.  Even quicker was my examination, a few more painful lights shining into my eyes and I was told that my prescription had worsened.  By almost two dioptre.  Psh.  He didn’t even do the “Number one…or number two…” bit.  No “red or green?”, no “which line can you read?”.  And my pupils didn’t go down for nearly three days.  First thing Monday morning I went to a reputable Guildford optician, and had my examination re-taken.  This time, only a difference of -0.5.  Well there we bloomin’ go, that’s better.

What else happened?  Er, I went to a “Monster Mash”, I enjoyed the Olympics, my Sky+ box got fixed..?

Oh, wait, yes.  Results day.  That was it. Refreshing the UCAS system ’til 3 in the morning while watching BBC Three late-night crap/comedy gold/crap (delete as applicable).  Well, that didn’t prove very fruitful, as no-one from UCAS seems to actually operate in the small hours of the morning (they haven’t outsourced to a non-GMT place….yet.), so I groggily drove myself to school at about 11 am.  I got an A in English, an A in Drama & Theatre Studies, a B in French and a B in Spanish.  If you’re an Edexcel Drama A2 practical invigilator, I now detest you with a passion, given that my favourite performance piece, for which I had the largest part, garnered a module-crippling C.  Cheers, love.

Anyway, these results mean I comfortably got into RHUL.  Cue lots of enrolment letters and an online ‘campus-connect’ registration. Funky. I’ll meet my fellow captains of industry on 21st September.

In between all the exciting university correspondence, I went to Reading Festival 2008!  My third year at Reading, I saw lots and lots of bands, as to be expected from a music festival….but I also met Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, The Teenagers (exercising my A-level French) and We Are Scientists.  And made some new [Facebook] friends in the queue.  I’ve already booked for ’09.  I love student credit cards.  Credit crunch? Is that a cereal?  Turns the milk into….debt?  Repossesses your bowl?  Okay, okay, I’ll stop.

You’ll be pleased to hear that I’m off to Cyprus from 3rd-10th September, but hopefully I’ll start blogging more regularly than once a month, or in this case, once every two moths.  These late-night/early-morning sessions don’t seem to be good for much, sitting at home watching TV and rambling on the internet.

Bugger.  I’ve just taken a break from watching the US Open (it starts at 4pm and ends at 4am, coinciding with my new sleeping pattern…) to see Manchester Utd (yay!) get beaten by Zenit St. Petersburg (boo!) in the UEFA Super Cup.  Hear that?  That’s the sound of no-one, apart from me, caring.

I’m preparing for uni at the moment; buying exorbitant amounts of books but not reading them, looking at bed linen and crockery but not buying anything…actually, I’d better get on with some of this.  Time to get the next chapter of my life kick-started.

The first time is the next time
This time is the last time
And this time is the last time
’cause this time I’ll fight.

Ah. I didn’t factor in Freshers’ Week, did I?

I’ve inherited a pro account as a result of having a BT[internet/Yahoo!/openworld/broadband] account, which is fairly nifty.  It gives me ‘unlimited’ storage, but I’m not entirely sure how to use it.  Do I upload ALL of my photos? Even as a backup?  Sure, why not.  I can’t be bothered to sift through them all and pick the best composed shot out of five from three years ago.  Yep, teenage laziness strikes again.  There are some good ones in there, real gems (even if I do say so myself) but you’ll probably be seeing mostly trash via the widget on your right.  Shame.  Feel free to have a look and comment, and suggest for deletion, if you can be bothered with judging blurriness.  Outsourcing – that’s the future.