Glass Half Empty

So, it's been a few weeks since the last Maelstrom of the year, and I can feel the urge to be someone else for an afternoon starting to gnaw at the edges of my consciousness. A few of my friends are working on maybe putting together a linear system for use in Brighton, and there's Brighton Below in November, and of course I should try to get along to the semi-official Fools and Heroes game that runs monthly here. I've heard mixed reviews of the Fools and Heroes rules and setting, but don't knock it till you've tried it, right?

Maelstrom was good, though. A festival hosted by the faithful was always going to be quite religion-biased, and the laws were quite restrictive (less so for males than females, lol Islamic-template-religion), but on the whole, I think it went well. We went there with a small set of goals, and came away having completed most of a larger, completely different set, so ... success, sort of.

Enough froth. The fencing club will start meeting again soon, so since I'm the armourer I need to see what state the kit's in and repair any damage, restock worn parts and flat batteries, and get ready for the start of the year. The club meets at the same time as the Portslade gaming group, and since I'm an officer at the club, I kinda have to be there, which doesn't help my desire to play RPGs any. So it goes. It just means that this Tuesday is the last time I'll be able to see that group of friends until December. Hmm. Have to fix that, somehow.

The Freshers are on campus now, and the old place is starting back up. I have to admit, I am looking forward to another year's worth of young people to meet, and to train. I wonder who we'll see this year? I'm always surprised by the sheer variety of people we get, and how the best fencers are absolutely not the people you expect.

The title of this entry refers to something that makes me slightly sad, but also happy. As you may be aware, I cycle most places and take trains the rest, owing to not having a car (and also as part of the ongoing, and currently stalled, Operation Not Being A Fat Bastard). However, my bicycle needed a new rear hub a while back, which meant a wheel rebuild, which apparently I didn't do very well. Constant tuning and three snapped spokes later, I'm biting the bullet and paying BikeHut to rebuild the wheel for me. Since the price is fairly reasonable, and includes gear and brake retunes and cheap new cables for both of the above, I'm not overly complaining. Still, I'm an engineering student, and I feel like I should be able to do these things myself. I suppose I can claim that my time is more valuable than theirs, but ... eh, justifications. Whether I can actually afford it, until my new funding arrangement starts working properly, is a question I can't actually answer till I see my payslip for this month (there's about a 33% chance I won't be paid the right amount this month due to admin failures) I've enough in savings to get by, it's just a pain.

Onward, ever onward. I've just found what could be a fairly significant timing problem in the work we're doing right now, so I should probably stop blogging and start working again.

The Glass: half empty