A bittersweet ending... | Newsletter T2W10

Sun 15 Mar Newsletter

2am Monologue Processing--- Oh no... it's week 10. This means ----- deadlines. I hear exams whispering into my ears but no I can't yet. I must fight my coursework demons first. I mean I wish I could just hang a labubu in my flat and do a demonic ritual for it to bless me with high first class for my upcoming courseworks (cough soft eng) and exams. However my flatmate whispers many threats if I do that again so I can't and must grind soon.

Retirement Monologue It hasn't hit me yet but some of the execs will be retiring... oh well I hope everyone here reading this enjoyed our exec cycle :) If not, report and support (by that I mean tell us why and we'll try our best to support your wishes).

Exec Farewell Messages (scroll down) SCROLL DOWN if you wanna read the bittersweet messages from our dearest leaving execs. It is at the bottom of this newsletter.

Welfare Notice

UWCS has 2 Welfare Officers: Raven (Discord: raven0034) and Tom (Discord tomo.li). We can also be reached via our email inbox at welfare@uwcs.co.uk.

You can speak to us at any time via Discord, email, and in-person (often in our exec hoodies), for advice, signposting and support. This can be for navigating the uni's support services, or to disclose something not right that happened due to someone's conduct at one of our events, and much more.

Any discussions you have will stay with the specific Welfare Officer, unless you permit otherwise.

🍗 DAIU - End of Term Meal 🍗

🕖 Mon 16th Mar 7:30pm - 9pm 📍 DAIU, Coventry

Beautiful concoction of multiple ASIAN CUISINES (?)

Well Term 2 has unfortunately flown by and it's somehow time to get bookings ready for the end of term meal! Located in Coventry, DAIU is a new Chinese and Korean BBQ & Hotpot Buffet - also offering sushi and what looks like a variety of tasty goodies >:) Unless you're under 13 - then the whole buffet will cost you £35 a head (though I have heard rumours of a service charge). There is a student discount, so bring your student ID!

We'll be catching the 12x from the Interchange at** 7:03pm**

there's also another bus at 7:09, but you'll have to book it on the other end)

meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

📽️ EOT Video 📽️

🕘 Fri 20th Mar 9am - 5pm 📍 CS0.07

Build a legacy with us

it's that time of the term again........

TIME TO MAKE HISTORY (again)‼️

come along to make this term's EOT video!! it'll be fun!! we'll have free snacks and drinks!!

and i promise to have it more organised this year (maybe) (maybe not) (come along to find out)

see you there.

Additional Details: Contact: Irene (@eneri on Discord) if you want more details. YouTube Channel: Giddy Up, Glitch (to view our track record) Job Description: Help us make the script, act, or be present for the good vibes.

PSSTT: you don't have to do everything-- you can show up for chunks and contribute. We'll be happy as long as you show up

Origin/Lore/Backstory: We made this channel because we wanted to make funny videos to reflect our experiences in University that we wanted to look back on. Recently we opened up to everyone to participate which has been very rewarding as it's nice to see more and more people getting involved and what can be a historical artifact for all of us too reminisce our university lives over in the future :)

🏃 Run Club 🏃

🕔 Fri 20th Mar 5pm - 6pm 📍 Outside DCS

Practice running away from warwick here

Weekly runs, open to all members and friends of UWCS. An average week might look like a 5k around campus on a pre-planned route, but as this is the first term for which the event is being run, expect to see a variety of ideas each week.

FOR ALL ABILITY LEVELS.

Strava - UWCS Run Club

side node by Crystal I truly believe that this is prime time to run away from dcs, from warwick, from society. The moment Zach/Alfie says run. You should just bolt away 🥳 If anyone asks why, just say you forgot to stop. It's a full proof plan for escaping society.

👾🎮 Friday Night Gaming (7pm till LateTM) 👾🎮

🕖 Fri 20th Mar 7pm - 5am 📍 CS0.03

Unlimited games. Just games.

Friday Nights. Gaming. FNG. That's all we've known. PCs, consoles, VR, snacks and drinks. The pinnacle. The untoppable and unstoppable force. Sometimes you must choose between the last U1 and continuing Never Gonna Give You Up on Clone Hero. Your home for some beats? Aye, a worthy sacrifice.

Join us in DCS every Friday from 7pm, until you see Raven conked out on the floor from exhaustion sometime on Saturday.

The Gaming Coordinators this year are: Raven (raven0034), Rob (spooky3142), Lyon (keyboardsky), Arda (mangowizard), Sharvil (w.0lf), Laina (vomitspawn), and Santiago (colombian.) - if you need help or just wanna yap, come find us :)

We have our DCS account login - any game (including via Steam!) that you can get running, you can play. We also have several consoles, including Xboxes, PS4, Switch 1 & 2, Wii, along with our PCs which I call Nuke Machine and Microwave, which you can use our Valve Index on, play Clone Hero, and more! We also have board games for anybody wanting a less tech-based way to enjoy games :)

Important: FNG is a sober event, please don't bring alcohol in, or you will be asked to leave.

Also Important: Make sure to tidy up after yourself before leaving, the department does a great kindness in letting us run this event, preferably we stay on their good side!

Hope to see you there :3 (Note: you don't have to be a DCS student to come along!)

💌 EXEC FAREWELL MESSAGES 💌

🕖 Start of Term 3 2024 - End of Term 2 2025 📍 UWCS

Lyon

Well, where do I start...?
It's been a hell of a year, as my term as gamer and resident quizmaster comes to an end... yeah no I don't have the energy (nor ability really) to write a grandiose speech for this, I've already self-certed my all my deadlines into the sun, yet they're still coming after me. I still have things to say though, so here we go:

Thank you to everyone who's helped with FNG & LAN setups, packups, snack runs and all the other 'behind the scenes' stuff, collectively crashing out at the state of the labs at 5am is certainly one way to weather some of the inevitable insanity, as is running off with the good Costco waffles. Gamers my gamers, we've made it through :)

Thank you to everyone who attended one of my quizzes and didn't think it was completely terrible, and my deepest apologies if you only attended the BFSL part 2 quiz, that was not my finest hour at all. If you ever guessed one of my more niche game picks or my very specific song choices correctly, you have my utmost respect.

And finally, thanks for the memories, cause even if they weren't all great, I'm still glad I had the chances to do all this crazy stuff.

And with that, I hang up my hoodie, walk off into the sunset, and crumble into dust as I retire (not before hosting one last quiz though! you will pry the title of quizmaster from my cold, dead hands until I finish hosting that quiz. after that... who knows?).

So long and goodnight,
Lyon

Laina

hi guys, laina, one of the gaming freps (and incoming gaming coord) here. its somewhat emotional to see the exec handover happen to me. my first interaction with uwcs properly was while i was still in year 13, i was good friends with luna from sixth form and she (and thus a few other people) invited me to come to the term 3 LAN, which happened to start on the day of my final A-Levels, my extra pure paper. i think in some way the fact that that paper was my last is kind of poetic, since its a lot more like uni maths than the rest of the exams lol. i got invited only a few days before LAN so i had to make some last minute decisions, and the entire night before i was planning what i would do. i ended up walking into my exam room with a bag full of clothes and a sleeping bag. finished my exam, and walked down to the train station with 2 of my friends from sixth-form, that would be the last time i saw one of them, and i saw the other one only 2 more times. but i remember that day vividly, taking a train from exeter to reading, getting stranded in reading becuase of the tracks overheating in southampton, then a train from reading to birmingham, then a train from birmingham to coventry. it was a weird experience, it took several hours but i didnt know what to expect, but i think that day and the 2 that followed definitely shaped my experience of what would come of this uni since from that day i ended up getting introduced to all the people which would be the exec that are leaving now. if it werent for those few days, i doubt i would be interacting with uwcs. after all i dont really like programming or any aspect of non-theoretical computer science lol. but at the time, that weekend was arguably one of the most fun weekends ive had in my life, and it was absolutely worth all the energy it took to actually get there. so yeah, my experience with this university is shaped by uwcs, rather than the other way round. so seeing the exec handover, i feel emotional. its a pretty big turning point for me to know that i get to have the honours of having the role handed over to me, and i doubt id want my university experience any other way. FNGs are great and i think theyre something greater than just gaming, since so many friend groups, unofficial other-society hangouts, actual chances to do organised gaming events, etc. its quite special in my mind even if its a weekly thing. but also, LAN of course, for many the reasons above was a big deal to me too. but i feel like its important for me to also touch on the significance of WASD to me and why its here. a day before WASD happened i was informed by luna about WASD happening and i ended up tuning in for the celeste bingo race, since chris who took part in it also went to my sixth form. i donated a bit of money, and he made a funny face and it got turned into a sticker in the uwcs discord, i think that's awesome but more importantly, speedrunning has been a pretty big part of my life from when i was 11 up until about 16. i would spend a lot of time during year 7 learning the strats for things like super mario 63 and fancypants adventures, but i ended up getting quite well integrated into the roblox speedrunning community. i made myself quite known for my kind of timegroup and established a lot of people im still friends with today. i frequently modded the boards for pretty much all the tower obby games on speedrun.com (tower of hell, eternal towers of hell, anothers towers of stupidity, the neat project, to name a few) and it becamse a pretty important part of my early teenage experience (even though youre meant to be 17 to be allowed to do so, lol). but i was clocking in 3 hour shifts after school every single day to make sure the leaderboards were maintained, and eventually i became a verifier for the entire roblox category on speedrun.com which was a really big honour to me at the time, and i remember when i found out my application got accepted i did start crying on the spot. i ended up hosting for a few years this speedrun marathon called RGDQ (+ WRGDQ for during the winter) which was a biannual thing and me and the rest of the team ended up raising about $1500 on average per year. it was such an honour to be able to contribute to it. but in the process i gained a lot of skills, i did pretty much all the roles since it was a somewhat informal online thing, but as much as i was kinda bad at it, you cant expect much from someone whos like 13 trying to backend tech while also commentating and/or speedrunning. yeah, pretty big honour for me to have been a part of. but i stopped around the time of my a-levels, so being able to go to university and getting to experience a really well-done, official feeling speedrun marathon in person, and nevertheless getting to say i was an organiser for it brings me nearly to tears everytime i think about it. so nevertheless i want to say thank you to everyone who has contributed to wasd, everyone who has come to FNG and LAN, and especially, than you to all the execs who are passing the torch over to us and thank you Luna for introducing me to this amazing community, and im glad to see youre not leaving the exec team this year. <3

Acknowledgement: I want to take this opportunity to thank Ray (my co Secretary) for showing me the ropes of this job and working with this for this past year and Raven (imposter Secretary) for honestly being such a saviour for stepping in when Ray and I were occupied.

Congratulations: Finally I want to congratulate all the incoming execs for winning their positions, and good luck for the upcoming academic year :)

Honourable Mention: Odin for being the new incoming Secretary. He wrote something about lusting for the robot in the robot maze in the frep newsletter I think... hence I can't wait to see what he has in store for us...

Finale: Overall, this will be your last newsletter for the term. I hope you've enjoyed reading my hopefully entertaining life commentaries and that you've found my payload of bytes useful to plan your week at some point :).

the lack of sleep is making me write so much

-- Crystal (status: going crazy from self expectations)