Steven W.

I'm back to this series. I actually thought I'd talk about Lydia or Kim or someone else from work next, but nope, Steve it is.

I should start by saying, I know a freaking lot of Steve's. I even had a kid with a Steve. But not Steve W. Don't worry about that.

Steve W is one of the few Steve's I know from outside work. I infact met him at uni.

I saw him a couple of times in my first year. Mest hat, GC hoodie. You know when you see someone and just think 'but you're meant to be my mate!' Steve. At the time, I was so into GC and mest, I could've chewed his ear off all day, lol.

We didn't work together until near the end of first year. They did a taster day for second year TV, and we were two of the people who went, if I remember rightly (I think I do. My friend Jenny was there too, and she's the girl who I never stopped talking to once I got started/played viscious chess games with, so it's hard to actually remember.)

We were in the same TV group second year. So we got talking (because I had loads of mest and NFG and green day stuff too), with the rest of the people in the group (10 girls, 5 boys total, 4 of the guys were from Sheffield, half the girls were from Essex. It's like they rigged it or something. Most of the guys on our overall course went for radio or digital media instead of TV, which was why they were out-numbered) ... a hell of a lot of our group were into mcfly, I remember, so if we didn't have any ideas for our projects, we'd just talk about the latest CD/gig.

In third year, we both ended up majoring in radio. They were talking about projects we had to do in pairs or threes and at one point in the lecture he turned around and was like *mouthing, since the lecturer was still talking* 'you, me, punk'. So for 12 weeks we got to do work we actually liked, and pretty much avoided all our personal seminars for the topic, in true punk style, lol (or the direction from the lecturer was always the same and gave us nothing to work with and we figured, hey, we can do it on our own, we both spent the last 2 summers doing make-up work anyway. We did our practical work together too, it made the most sense. He was having the same issues I was having with my dissertation, in that I hadn't been given a lecturer to refer to and every time I emailed the guy in charge of assigning us, I was had a go at for not taking action sooner, rather than given any help. It was nice to have someone in the same boat.

He didn't really respect the system. Not in a 'bad boy' way. You had to seriously kiss ass to get anywhere at our uni. It was so competitive. And I'm competitive, but my kiss-ass is all piss-take. I wouldn't get anywhere straight-up brown-nosing. I didn't go to uni to steal our lecturers contacts, you know? But that, it seems, is how you got a first on our course. I'm glad he didn't buy into the whole system, it helped not to feel swallowed up by those that do.

He's one of the few people I've stayed in touch with since leaving uni. I've got my third year housemates and Jenny on facebook, but apart from seeing each others status' and whatnot, we don't really keep in touch. But I do still talk to Steve. He's into a lot of the same bands as me and my BFFs, still. He's watching all the films I wanna go see if I had the chance (I will be making it to Prince of Persia though, dammit!) ... so even if I haven't actually been face to face with the guy for 4 years, it's nice to think that something came out of three years at university. Good to think that someone's at my level, in the same boat, and still a friend.

Telling the truth

So ... my friend in Rhode Island sends me emails all the time. I don't always send them back (bad zee!). Most of them are hilarious pictures of people who shop in WalMart, I wet myself at those emails. she finds them on a site? Every now and then, she'll send something sweet instead, like this email I got today.

I'd paste it, but obviously that doesn't work here, and I can't really motivate myself to trascribing the whole thing, but it talks of this woman, a friend of hers, looking through pictures and coming across one of her mother, post-dialysis, looking really happy as they talked. And as this woman's looking at this picture, she asks herself if she regretted anything about caring for her mother etc etc ... and she had none, because this picture centred around her letting her mother know she was loved, basically. She never had to regret the 'what if' factor.

So occasionally, I'm going to make posts. That tell the people I love that I love them. When I make these posts, I will use real names, instead of the aliases I put up ... because even if you can guess your alias, it's not as good as knowing the real thing, is it? All pretenses will be dropped.

I won't do them all together though, because I've already experienced the troubles of posting long posts.

So ... I'll start off with the girl who inspired me. Kerri.

I've known Kerri roughly four years. Obviously, given the distance, we've never met in person (I've met a handful of my American friends, and I get bashful with all of them), but I wish I had. Every Christmas we swap cards - hers are always hilarious.

She reminds me of everything good about America. She's caring and passionate (and yes, nationalistic) but she's funny in a way people forget. Americans do irony well, and Kerri can be a prime example of that. We met on a message board, and a lot of the kids on there were pretty juvenile (mainly a Canadian girl, an Australian girl and a couple of New Zealanders. Though we still loved them ... it's a little complicated) and I think at first Kerri's humour was lost on them - they thought she was serious and boring, when she was teasing them all along.

I can't remember my first impression of Kerri. I remember her growing on me more, she was always trying to sort out issues (which happens a lot when you have strong personalities come together, like we did on that board) and play peacemaker and motherhen. Before I left that board (not through choice, it was part of a rubbish fan club and my subscription ended) I think we all came to think of her as our online mother.

It's weird, because there's only two girls I've kept in touch with after that, Kerri and Martha. Martha's on my facebook, but Kerri's in a certain position workwise, so she won't go on facebook. It was hard enough getting her to open up on the board, and harder to get her on myspace. But when you crack that little nut ... she's gold.

I just wish I saw her, talked to her more often. God, I'm a rubbish friend ...