Pastures New

Apologies in advance, to any regular readers, but part of what I'm about to say may well be find repeated, a lot, in the content of previous blog posts.

Nonetheless, when I set this up I endeavoured to maintain it, and that I shall.

Summer is now officially drawing to and end for me. I guess, in effect, it did last weekend. Over the last week I've been on a week-long course/placement, which was extremely enjoyable, useful and exhausting. Not only did it consist of solid 12-14 hour days but also a collection of pretty unique people. I'm really glad I went on it, not only for the networking opportunities it provided me in the City but also the people I met, its a rarity these days.

I'm not preparing to head back down to London in order to start uni again in a week's time. I'm going a tad early due to the arrival of the missus again (obv my taxi services are required) and I also fancy checking out the Freshers for a final time! Those are the fun reasons for me going down anyway but there is also a more serious purpose!

One of these is finding a flat and its something that is of particular interest given its relation to my poker-playing abilities. I haven't had much desire to play this summer but when I have wanted to the internet connection I have has been appalling. Words cannot describe how bad it is. Nobody contemplate using AOL as an ISP, PLEASE..

So, I'm staying at a mates' house for a couple of weeks and this will be my first opportunity to play. There won't be any mammoth sessions by any stretch of the imagination but I do certainly intend to put in some hours. Hopefully come the first or second week of October I'll then have my own place and that will be where my commitment can be demonstrated once again. I'm serious about playing again, not only because I miss it from a recreational and social point of view but also from the financial side of things. What will be interesting is that I am EXTREMELY unlikely to experience what I experienced this time last year - getting off to a flyer via the shipping of a tournament! The roll still remains at $1300, which I'm very pleased at managing to hold on to. So its going to be a case of really grinding out the 45s and 90s on Stars and hopefully building up to the point I was before the summer. I've spent the majority of the money and its not something I regret. This time I will plan it differently and make regular withdrawals, so as not get to the point where its an "all or nothing" situation. However, this summer has been like no other in terms of my ability to refuse to work, get some work experience under-my-belt and just have an absolute blast of a time doing whatever I want. Of course it puts me in a more difficult position now but how often do those times come around in one's life? Rarely imo. It will take a serious amount of planning now because I need to fit in a serious amount of university commitments and a part-time job whilst also balancing a girlfriend and social life alongside that. I turned down the option of living with a couple of people last week for this reason and I hope the decision doesn't back-fire. I could have lived with another couple, who are close friends or two lads but I truly believe I stand a better chance of being able to enjoy the year by achieving all my goals and having fun along the way by living on my own. Typically that's the more expensive route by a country mile but hey ho. The pressure is good!


So, anyway, I've ranted on once again. I've had a great summer, accomplished almost everything I wanted to but I'm not back and raring to go. Its going to be a difficult twelve months for a host of reasons I feel but if I set out with the right intentions from the offset then I can at least look back in the knowledge that I gave it my best shot.