That was the year that was.

Coming up on a year since the last post, it's time for another.

I'm now drawing to the close of my juniour honours year at Glasgow Uni, which has been challenging but in a good way. After the year abroad and a further summer away at Disney, I was keen to get back to uni life, get back into the books and take it head on. I did, to an extent, and one class I particularly enjoyed in the first semester was Performance Theory and Analysis with Katie Gough. I was warned and worried about this class - a whole semester of three hour classes on the "hows" and "whys" of theatre - theoritical crap I had never really gotten to grips with, but my solution for that was a radical one - I did the reading.

That's right, I did what I was told and let me tell you, it helped. I ended up loving the class, which was full of exchiting debate and discussion about various aspects of performance studies, ably led by Katie Gough, one of the smartest people I've ever met, despite her unfortunate affliction of being American.

I also started classes in Contemporary French Theatre and Bande Dessinée along with the usual French Language classes. Band Dessinée (Francophone comics), or BD, had been a class I had looked forward to since my first intorduction to the study of tintin in second year. Once again, led by the incredible Billy Grove, referred to as the "Don" of BD. Enriching, rewarding (and fun) this class has let me study exactly what I wanted with no limits or restrictions - my essay/research project was finally on experimental narratology in Bande Dessinée, looking at ways stories are constructed in populist and post modern comics, drawing on long forgotten knowledge from level one film and TV.

That semseter also saw Kevin Carr, Michale Egan and myself start a project we had talked about for a long time, our own radio show on Glasgow University's Subcity Radio. We went on the air in October with "The All Day Cheeky Breakfast", a weekly mix of "cheeky tunes and cheeky chat" from 10-12 on Fridays (find all our shows online at www.subcity.org/shows/cheekybreakfast). Whilst hauling myself out of bed for 10 on a Friday is occasionally challenging, the show has been immense fun, and has ended up pretty successful, never dropping out of the top ten shows, despite this being our first year, and there being over 100 shows on Subcity.

After Disney, which was by the way, incredible - this summer I worked in the World of Disney - the largest character merchandise store on earth, I came home and looked for a new job. Thankfully dad had taken up a new position with the old manager of Rogano and belligerent Restauranteur Gordon Yuill. He's known around the Glasgow restaurant scene for one thing - being a dick. He didn't disappoint too much. I started work as a waiter in August at the Merrylee Road Bar and Grill, which was an OK job. I felt the need not to go back to the Golf Club, despite good times and great friends made there, and after Disney and a year abroad the timing felt right to try something else. Eventually, one of the other waiters Nikhil left to go back to Rogano, and "proccured" me a job as well. I started working in Glasgow's oldest restaurant in November, and it has been great. Excellent tips, nice people and a real landmark for Glasgow. The shine might have come off her a bit, but she is still Glasgow's favourite restaurant. Café Rogano, where I work, is laid back enough and yet maintains a lot of the formality and service that I love about Restaurants.

November also saw a jaunt for us to Paris and Lyon to visit our buddies MC and Euan, doing their year abroad as law students in France's Gastronomic capital. The short time spent living la vie francaise made me pine a bit for my year abroad, and all the fun and adventure that came with it. Ansleigh is still out in Paris, and seeing her live her life in the capital with a great job as a language tutor just showed me that the world is my oyster with a language degree.

Christmas came and went, after pretty intense snowfall, and Semester 2 started in earnest. My new classes were Space, place and Peformance with Minty Donald and Modern German Theatre with Anselm Heinrich. Both have been superb, Anselm's enthusiasm has once again made it a pleasure to be taught by him, and Space, Place and Performance (Splace to you and I) has allowed me to take on projects I wouldn't have otherwise. My final project was a piece at the Lighthosuse in Glasgow, on the 6th floor viewing gallery involving interviews with Glaswegians on acetates attached to the windows. Visitors have been invited to leave their own messages to add to the piece. Intended as a one-day piece for my class, the manager of the Lighthouse was excited by the project and invited me to exhibit it for a month. We are now drawing to the end, and responses have been varied, to say the least, yet all have made me smile.

All this romanticising of my degree made it all the more hurtful when question marks were drawn over the future of numerous courses at the University, under the stewardship of economics professor Anton Muscatelli, the principal. An occupation of the Theatre studies building in December was the start of a string of protests anddemonstraations by students attempting to save their university from radical change and undemocratic decision making. I have been involved in some of the protests and organising, having met with the "consultation panels" charged with deciding on a future for the school of modern languages and cultures. Fitiing it in with uni work has been challenging, but it looks like we are making progress, as decisions look to be less radical and have been postponed to allow more time.

Looking forward I have a few essays to finish before the start of a long holiday, my last from uni. Friends are graduating who left me behind after the year abroad, but this just means I have had the chance to meet lots of new people. After that, I have pending applications with lots of theatre companies in the united states, hoping for one of their very competitve internships this summer. Time will tell what happens, but as per usual, it's all go.