A good week gone, a good week ahead!

As promised, I'm writing another blog one week after my previous one, and it'll be as beefed up as you might expect! If you haven't read that blog, you'll find it somewhere on this site. If you have, you'll know that I spent Wednesday to Sunday in Yorkshire as I started the first week of a new job. Put simply, it was really, really good! Who knew you could have so much fun whilst earning money?! The weather was great and it was just a very good few days with a new bunch of people. The photo below is from Cod Beck Reservoir - as a sucker for panoramas you can imagine what I was like as soon as I got there! I've gotta say the moment of the week for me was when our programme leader (i.e. our boss!) admitted that when he met us on Wednesday he had no idea whether we were staff or were participants that had turned up 2 hours early because we looked so young!

The big news last week, obviously, was that we voted to leave the EU. I woke up to this news on Friday morning and was pretty shocked given the late opinion polls showing a pretty big favouritism towards 'Remain'...which clearly didn't materialise! Those of us at the hostel spent a good 45 mins on our phones checking every bit of news and, in particular, the angry Facebook posts directed towards 'Leave' voters. I can't say I've been overly impressed by the reaction - the 'Remain' voters have been very negative since Friday. Despite the result being the opposite of how I voted, I'm still quite optimistic about our situation and am actually looking forward to see how we develop from here.

I got back from Yorkshire on Sunday and thought I'd try and get on with some tasks and make myself useful. That went down the drain pretty quickly - I was absolutely knackered after 5 early wake-ups in a row! I could barely concentrate for 5 mins so sacked in doing anything productive. Of course, I had to revert to typical me and wake up at 7:30am on Monday as if I had to do anything that day. For the last two days I've just been preparing for this week's work (Wednesday to Sunday again) and watching Wimbledon! Looking forward to another week of NCS!

And to end with a bit of football ranting...I've got to say I was glad that I couldn't watch England last night - out for a Chinese meal for grandad's birthday was a much more enjoyable couple of hours! Let's just say England were embarrassing and we'll leave it at that! Considering the number of resignations over the last week I've decided I'll be running for No.10 and for Head Coach of the England Football Team. All support is welcome :)

Catch y'all later!

Ollie
Twitter: @Chowerz
Instagram: @chowerz

A New Challenge

So exams have finished, signalling the end of my first year at university, my dodgeball career is up and running, the cricket season is in full flow and I've got plenty to look forward to this summer.

I'll never forget that dreadful feeling the day after I finished my A-levels last year. After waiting for so long to just "do nothing", I don't think I've ever had a more boring day in my life. This year, thankfully, there was no repeat as I spent a couple of days with uni mates before everyone left for the summer. I think I spent more time with nearby flatmates in the last week than I did with them since freshers', which was really good. I also sent off my postal vote last week and, despite barely following the EU referendum to the detail it probably warrants, I'm looking forward to seeing the result.

Over the last weekend I was in Manchester going through training for my role as Senior Mentor on NCS with The Challenge this summer - in fact, I'm starting today! To put it simply, I'm leading round a group of 15-17 year-olds and helping their development into more well-rounded people. I can't wait to start and am buzzing for it. Even just meeting loads of cool new people at the training weekend has got me excited, no matter how boring the training was (well, we'll single Saturday afternoon out for that). The energy that these people bring to groups is amazing and I'm hoping I can do the same for my group when it all starts.

I've finally realised, almost one year on, that I just can't blog every day. I'm not sure whether or not it does the view count any good - do people want to read something every day or something more fulfilling every week or so? I'm backing the latter at the moment, and hopefully the blogs will be better as a result :)

To finish, I've got to vent a bit of my frustration from watching England at the Euros. Statistically we've been dominant but it baffles me how Roy Hodgson sticks with a 4-3-3 formation whilst using players that don't suit it. But I won't bore you with football talk.

Here's to a great few days in Yorkshire! I'll be singing Justin Timberlake's new song, "Can't Stop the Feeling", all the way there and back because it's an absolute TUNE.

Ollie
Twitter: @Chowerz
Instagram: @chowerz

DODGEBALL

I finished my exams last Wednesday and after a few days of drinking, normal business was resumed - i.e. two days of cricket at the weekend, despite the wet weather. However, on Monday "normal business" was put on hold as I travelled down to Leicester with Shieuerz to play a dodgeball tournament. Having got in to Leicester at around 3pm, we were both absolutely knackered having had severely inconsistent sleeps throughout the last week, and as this photo shows we were truly in the mood for some dodgeball:

We met up with the other members of our team at around 5pm, where I was totally outnumbered by pharmaceutical chemists, but also joined by fellow dodgeball debutants. Suited up and ready to go, I suddenly realised we were only playing on badminton-sized courts and the challenge increased ten-fold.

It didn't get any easier after our first match. Playing a team including the men's captain, we were taken down 3 games to nil and could've easily capitulated after that. However, two winnable matches followed and we duly won them 2-1 (courtesy of Shieuerz's unbelievable play when it was 2 v 4) and 3-0, putting us third in our group of five. That left a straight shoot-out against the second-placed team for a place in the semi-finals. We took the first game with a brilliant win, but ultimately couldn't finish the job as their greater experience proved enough to defeat us. We were left with a 5th/6th place play-off which we took 3-2 thanks to some Brendan Rodgers-style 'character' at 2-1 down (after Shieuerz and his dodgeball teammate bottled two games). A 5th placed finish out of 10, solid top half performance.

Of course, the entertainment didn't end there as we headed to the pub to watch the closing stages of Belgium v Italy, before I tanked Shieuerz at pool and we took on 50 chicken wings - unsuccessfully - and headed to bed an hour or so later.

Unfortunately Shieuerz didn't manage to record me holding off a team for a good minute by myself, dodging three balls at a time before succumbing to the pressure. I guess this photo tells you all you need to know about how I fell in love with the game:

Ollie :)

Twitter: @Chowerz

Instagram: chowerz