Another year has completely flown by!! Leaving me chasing deadlines, Christmas bargains, and trying to tie up loose ends and prepare for the new year.

How’s your preparation coming along? All sorted for Christmas? I’m not. Still need to wrap all my presents, oh and when I say wrap (*****JAMES CHRISTMAS TIP COMING UP*****) I mean crack out the tin foil, and wrap it around gifts. Why tin foil, I hear you ask… It is cheaper than wrapping paper, you don’t need cellotape, and you can make it any colour you want with some handy spray paint.

For Christmas I shall be heading home to Mum’s for some lovely food and much needed family time, which is always good to have throughout the year, not just at holidays. Then on boxing day heading over to another Christmas dinner with my step dad and little sister. Good times. Probably indulging many a chocolate bar too.

But before we get too far into Christmas what has December and the end of semester 1 had in store for us all?

Well for me, the beginning of the month, was taken up intensely by rehearsals and performances at The Midlands Arts Centre (The MAC) In Birmingham. It was a very successful showing of Mr Puntilla and his Man Matti, and I hope everyone that came to see our performance enjoyed it very much. If you did not, then do not worry, it won’t be my final ever performance at Newman, I shall be performing in Alice in Wonderland in April/May with the rest of the MaDSoc cast!! If you want to be involved it’s not too late, casting and crew interviews happen in January, so just drop me an email if it’s something you’re interested in performing in at Newman. Just a little something for you to get involved in Society wise.

We have also had the Newman Senses Bar, Rudolph’s Rave!! Students donned suits and dresses for another great and successful night in the bar. There was a lovely Chinese buffet, photo booth, DJ and fantastic decorations. It was a well thought about alternative event to those of you that went to the Newman Students’ Union’s Christmas Ball. I hope you all equally enjoyed yourself as much as we did.

And here’s to many more successful days and nights at Newman next semester. You may have noticed by now, that I mention the bar a lot in m

y blogs and think, wow James is always in the bar. You are not wrong, it is one of my favourite places to chill out, watch some TV, play some pool, hang out with friends and meet new people. (I don’t drink there all the time!!) There is no reason why it cannot be a good place for the rest of the Newman students to pop down and have a chilled night with some friends.

If you’re a student who doesn’t usually use the facilities of the Newman Bar, I advise you to grab some of your friends together for just one night, and just pop down one night. See what it’s all about, meet the friendly faces behind the bar, and come and have a relax with your mates and forget about the deadlines for a night. Hopefully you’ll enjoy yourselves and become comfortable to come to the bar more often. It is not a cliquey place and everyone is welcome.

Are you all struggling with Uni work as much as I am? Third year is proving to take its toll, just as I thought it would, but that is my own challenge, having taken so much work on and different roles at Newman, but that is me, and what I am about. Keeping myself busy, I am not one to be sat indoors twiddling my thumbs, but prefer to be out there doing my bit for the Newman community. To combat this, I am in the process of creating myself a plan over the next two weeks to get my assignments done. I found this is the way that I work best, with the added event of an all nighter planned at least once or twice a year, I imagine these will become more frequent when dissertation hand in date creeps up on us all… That’s not going to be a fun month. In January the library will be open until midnight, thank you Newman for that! I shall be making use of that I think, and I advise all you who work better late at night to use it too.

Whilst talking about doing stuff, MaDSoc have finally announced their production for this year!! We shall be performing (as mentioned earlier) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll!! If you’re interested in getting involved then let me know, or if not, then keep an eye out next semester for performance dates and when tickets are on sale. No doubt i’ll let you know any way.

Upcoming in January is the Newman Students Union Elections!! If you think you would make a good Executive Committee member within the Students’ Union, then pop up and have a chat with them and see if you fancy the challenge. There are many positions you can go for such as Societies Officer, Sports Officer, Welfare Officer and also the President and Vice President roles are also up for election. I have had a long think about this myself, I have been Societies Officer before (last year) and had a great time and would recommend it to anyone. Although this year…. I think I shall be going for Vice President!!! You heard it officially first hear folks! So I hope I can count on your votes in January and February, all the dates will be confirmed at the start of the new year I believe, keep an eye out for those too.

Out with 2013 and onto 2014 then! I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I shall see you all for the return of the new semester, for many their final semester here at Newman, for some it will still be the beginning but for everyone, it will be a new chapter. So bring it on!

Merry Christmas Newman