I've turned over a bit of a new leaf recently. Due to our shower being out of action, I've been going swimming in the morning (they have showers there you see). This morning the shower was actually working, but I still dragged my sorry arse to the baths and swam 700 metres. I'm looking to keep this up - twice a week, building up to doing a kilometre a time. It also means I don't get my morning baguette instead relying on a couple of apples.

All this could be seen as a good thing. Fit Alex can find boyfriend, becomes happy Alex.

But it's bloody knackering getting up early at the moment. That'll improve though.

Actually, on the boyfriend front, it's deadly quiet. It's difficult to meet people though. Oh, and I don't do flirting - except with one guy online who I stand no chance with 8-(. If you know anyone in the Manchester/Liverpool area who's cute (unfortunately, I typically go for twink types - shallow Alex), 22-26ish, intelligent, political, non smoking, geeky, single gay guys, light the way. I'm not asking for much reeeeeallllly.

In other news, I booked for Play again. I also booked two tickets to see James at the GMex (sorry, Manchester Central) on Fri 19th December. I've not currently found someone to go with me (maybe that cute, intelligent, political, non-smoking, MUSIC LOVING, gay guy can go with me...?) so if you fancy it, let me know.

In work news, I went to Scotland to liaise with The Student Loan Company and yesterday was spent giving presentations to prospective students at MMU Cheshire. First time I'd been to our Crewe campus. It's quite nice. The presentation could do with some refining though.

I've also been looking through the motions for NUS LGBT conference. I'm limited in what I can say on them as I'm a staff member in a Students' Union, but most of them are good steps forward. There's a move towards Queer inclusion which I anticipate could lead to some deep divisions (I remember the argument against Trans inclusion was "arghhhh! it'll let the straights in"). There's also a call for more activists training. I remember when I was involved, activist training was exclusive to LGB students. If you didn't define as L, G or B NUS LGB wanted to exclude you. So one SU sent their straight P&P guy (the best they'd ever had) to training so he would get a better understanding of the issues and they tried to kick him out. There is another motion which seems to be moving towards starting to alter that action which is a good thing in my opinion. Our campaign must be Queer led, but cannot be exclusive. Replacing one form of discrimination with another is a really bad idea. It's also good to see the motion to campaign for gay marriage, not this apartheid-esque civil partnerships we have now.

(and now Avenue Q's I wish I could go back to college comes on the iTunes... 8-)

Alex
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