Perhaps...

Perhaps, after the sun comes up and before the epic round trip to Wembley and the Boxing Day party, I will try to articulate how I feel about how the Big Day went. Successes were many, and weird moments and feelings were also present.

Then again, perhaps I won't. Despite being rather open about certain parts of my emotional spectrum, I'm incredibly reluctant to talk about certain things. We'll see what happens in the morning.

She sent me a festive text.

I would call her "the one that got away" - except I was never close to having her. Nowhere near.

Happy Christmas. You're still weird-looking, eclectic and undeniably sexy.

Travelling in Holiday Fortnight.

Before I launch right into another post, let me explain Holiday Fortnight.

This holiday period is the perfect example of Holiday Fortnight, since there is a very neat Monday to Sunday fortnight encapsulating Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Sometimes, you get Holiday WeekPlus, especially if Christmas falls in an awkward place (like a Monday). But a great deal of people really gear up to Christmas Day in the three/four days before Christmas, take the week between Christmas and the New Year off and sometimes indulge in a day or two after New Year's Eve to recover.

This post isn't about the semantics of Holiday Weekend. This post is about what happened when I tried to travel at the beginning of Holiday Weekend. Lovely Boyfriend Face is travelling to see me at the end of Holiday Fortnight, with the added bonus of weekend travel, so I imagine he might have quite the journey.

I went Up North on Monday and came Back Down on Wednesday, last night. Both journeys require three legs. The first two legs are largely similar, except the third leg offers me a choice: either I take a slower Northern Rail service to make the journey from Sheffield to Leeds, or I take the fast Cross Country service that is part of a behemoth voyage from Plymouth to Edinburgh.

On the way there, I decided to take the Cross Country to save time. So I stopped the second leg short of Sheffield to take that train through Sheffield and onto Leeds.

There were no seats. None.

I was standing for about an hour before we got to Sheffield, where luckily one seat became available. People filled the aisles, the hallways, it was difficult to get in and out. It was one of the worst train journeys I've been on for a while.

What had exacerbated how I felt about it was the fact that the first two legs had comfortably half-full trains: not ram-packed, but not eerily empty. (Mind you, I did start my journey at 9, maybe it's to be expected).

Coming back, I learnt my lesson. I opted for the slower Northern service. The best part of that journey was that the first two legs of the journeys begun where I was getting on, so the train is sat at the platform for a good 15 minutes before it set off, and you can always get a seat. So, my journey back home was rather comfortable.

Now I don't have to do any big travelling until Boxing Day, when we're going to London for a party with a family friend with an OBE. He got it several years ago, but it's still a massively big deal to me.

Killing in the name (of conformity)

Funnily enough, writing this post, I am thinking of Jedward. Those awfully highly entertaining, just-plain-awful Irish boys from X Factor infamy.

I think of them because this post is to do with X Factor. Second, they are identical twins. Even though I write this largely independently (bar news sources, Daily Fail, etc), I have no doubt whatsoever that almost-identical copies of this post are out there, somewhere. (Minus blond quiffs, and hopefully not singing Ghostbusters).

So, what's been the fuss this week? X Factor is over, and so is Strictly. Finally we can stop hearing about these shows... or can we?

There's this thing called "Christmas Number One". It's like being the Number One single at any time of year, except it's at Christmas, so the sales are bigger (usually). There's also betting on who will be Number One, cos betting is fun.

For the past few years, the X Factor show has finished just in time for the single released by the winner to be Christmas Number One. Apart from the first series, every other series had got their Christmas Number One... well, except poor little Joe, winner of the latest series.

Joe was faced with the rage of the general public at Simon Cowell for taking away the thrill of a real Christmas Number One, and for ruining their telly with X Factor, Xtra Factor and his manufactured "stars". He also wears his trousers too high and his tshirts are a bit tight sometimes - I think people take this issue very seriously.

So, anyway. The song that won was fueled by a rage of its own - Rage Against The Machine. Four lovely boys from LA who got quite angry with The System and wanted to Fight It and get angry and write a good song about it.

The line that always causes contention is: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"

The thing is, RATM would have never won this Christmas rage without a good deal of conformity. It's all well and good for people to say "Fuck Simon! I'm buying my own choice of single, and not your cookie-cutter pop boy's Miley Cyrus cover drivel". What you get is Joe winning and random singles all over of the place getting one extra download.

What you need is a co-ordinated strike. Suspending your belief in a total anarchy to create an anarchy-lite of sorts.

Moral of the story: If you want to Fight The System effectively, you have to create your own. But, we knew that already.

... until my eyes bleed.

When I went to Leeds one time, to visit Lovely Boyfriend Type Thing, I ended up in a shop of knitting materials with his mother. I left with my purse considerably lighter, and I had impulse-bought a Very Large ball of jade yarn, and a pattern for a ladies sweater.

I attempted the sweater pattern shortly after, and then gave up. I'm used to doing scarves and hats - you see progress much quicker with those. Each row took too long to knit, and the shaping was a bit confusing for me. In hindsight, it was a little too much for me to take on, given my attention span at all. However, I have retained the pattern (somewhere!) and I will dig it out one day.

Many moons after the Pattern Fail, I found a much simpler unisex pattern for a sweater vest on the blagoblag. Much less shaping, no sleeves and very little assembly afterwards. It looked good. I begun it.

Five weeks later, the end of term arrived. I'd done the back of the sweater vest. By this point, I'd realised that I could make this for my little brother, so I asked my mom for some measurements, which she gave me after two weeks of waiting.

Term ended less than a week ago. In those few days, I have achieved what it took nearly four weeks to do. I am eight inches, a neckline and some stitching away from pure and utter victory against this 400g behemoth ball of yarn.

However, as with all worthy challenges, there are obstacles. I'm going away on Friday until Sunday; I'll be in London. I'm also away next Monday until Wednesday; I'll be with Lovely Boyfriend. Chrimble Day is next Friday. So, there's not a great deal of time left.

I've been knitting for a very long time. It feels like a bit of a marathon. I've got so far though, it seems a shame to give up, which is why I cannot give up, and must keep going. I must keep knitting...

... until my eyes bleed.

(Well, maybe not that far.)

That's not what the NHS is for!

You see quite a lot of these stories in the news, especially on slow news days. They are invariably of the sort:

"Little Jack needs 3 million dollars for high-tech brain surgery that will give him four extra years of life. Oh, why won't the NHS fund this? Jimmy is a human being, and therefore deserves all the life that we can give him."

The NHS works like this, as far as I can tell:

Once upon a time, things were a lot like the US, in terms of health care. If you were reasonably okay for money and you got sick, you could easily be bankrupted. If you were poor, you couldn't afford treatment, unless you were very lucky, and able to find treatment in one of the few establishments helping people with no money. If you were rich, life was as good as can be. At some point, the UK thought, "This isn't really quite right," and decided that everyone deserves a free minimum standard of health care for two reasons - one, because it makes us productive and generates wealth, creates equality of value of life, rich or poor, etc, and two, because it's a Nice Thing to do.

The key word here is "minimum standard". The reason for this is that the NHS has finite resources and oh-so-finite money supplies. If they could give absolutely everyone who needed it a liver and a bed, they would. But they can't.

A key example of people forgetting the NHS's purpose is that liver drug. You know, the one that gives advanced liver cancer patients an extra 12 months or so.

First of all, how much good is this to the patient? 12 months of lying in bed, too weak to do much more than that. I may be exaggerating, I may not be, but quality of life is an important factor in these sorts of life-prolonging-not-actually-curing sorts of drugs.

To be heartless for a second, if their quality of life is poor, then they can't exactly come back to join society, work, pay taxes and contribute back to the State that has given them the money to get better. However, the State isn't always heartless. It recognises that it's okay to let people not of immediate utility to use resources. Still, it's something to think of.

More pressing is the amount of money this treatment costs. How many organ transplants, hip replacements, open heart surgeries, stitches and eye drops can we fund with the amount we'd spend on one person having an extra 12 months of (not necessarily quality) life? I don't know the answer to this question. The question is merely here to highlight that there is SO MUCH that the NHS has decided is part of a minimum standard of care. With all these things that are deemed to be essential, we don't have a great deal of money left over for things which are borderline.

By having a "minimum standard" existing, it means that certain treatments are not considered essential enough for the State to fund. That's why you can't get your boobs Jordanized for free. However, life is pretty precious. It's so precious that something about "right to life" is one of those human rights thingies. That's what makes this so hard to judge. Is prolonging life worth any cost? Some may say yes. (These people clearly have never been Chancellor of the Exchequer, balancing the books of the whole nation, not just the ill bit.)

I've not ever had a relative denied treatment on the NHS because they deemed it to be too dear, or too risky, or too *something*, so, I guess I'd be far more emotional and irrational talking about this if I was invested.

Still, I feel that no matter where you draw the line with free healthcare, someone will always be on the wrong side of that line, and they will always be upset. And that is how the world works, kids.

So, when you are on the wrong side of the line, go ahead and raise money, ask politicians nicely, get funding from some creepy rich business tycoon, but don't go to the Daily Mail and say "The NHS should fund this all for me because, because, because!" That's not what's it's there for. Sorry.

Dolls and Dolls.

We did the production of Guys and Dolls at school once, and I was working on sounds.

At the start of Act II, the Hot Box dancer girls perform the song "Take Back Your Mink". I remember everyone in the sound and light box would get everything done beforehand so that they could just watch and admire. There's a bit where they rip their skirts off and it's really quite hot, in a lightly titillating way. (It's set in the first half of the 20th Century, so you can't expect much more.)

At the time, I wasn't sure if I even liked girls any more, in a general way. I liked my friend, C, but that was arguably more of a obsession than an attraction. The first time I saw the dancers rehearse that song, I was just as slack-jawed as any of the other techie guys. I think that C just happened to be in the lineup too, but she was just a part of this impossibly gorgeous mass of young women dancing and singing and looking amazing.

Every time I watch Guys and Dolls on DVD, I see that song and remember that crazy thrill of not knowing how I felt, but at the same time, knowing exactly how I felt. Ah, those good old days.

Sad, and lucky.

Today, the things that make me feel sad and lucky are related to intelligence and homophobia.

I feel lucky that I am intelligent enough to have an interesting debate with people without relying on my own uninformed bigoted views. I'm able to change my mind almost entirely once proved wrong. I've never been a personal victim of homophobia (although my family's done a fairly good job of trying to rectify that...)

I feel sad that people are still homophobic, uneducated and unwilling to accept that some things are okay.

I was on Have Your Say today. I know, I know, what a horrible place to go. I read spEak You're bRanes, it's full of awful things that Daily Mail readers and interblag idiots like to say when they're not actually in front of people. So, after reading some angry statuses on Facebook about a particular debate on HYS, entitled "Should Uganda debate gay execution?" which had previously been called "Should homosexuals be executed?", to which the answer is YES, kill all the queers because they are awful. (The real answer is no, because queer people are people before being queer.)

There was a lot of "This is a ridiculous debate" comments, which was good. One went a little far, and suggested we pull aid out of Africa for having policies like that. There was a little bit of homophobic stuff on the board, but there were quite a few rejected comments, which suggests that people may have tried to post more.

My favourite comment of all suggested that homosexuality was the reason that Rome fell. Epic, epic win and fail.

Tales of Cambridge

So, the plan was that I'd go to Cambridge, judge, and then gain brownie points in order to speak somewhere I'd like (perhaps Cardiff, or even Euros next year). I waited at the arranged spot, and a fresher turns up, who I will call N. I've not seen N before, although he managed to get a chairing spot his very first time judging (it doesn't matter that it was a bin room).

You see, he wasn't supposed to be coming. It was supposed to be G and C, two experienced debaters, but C had to do work on Friday night, and G overwhelmed himself with coursework. So, N stepped in, and good little lady L would be joining us at Cambridge (she was in London, for some reason, and would make her own way there).

I told him the plan: he and L would speak, I would judge, all would be well. T comes to pick us up in his stylish automobile, we pick Z up from the train station, and away we go.

About five minutes before rounds are due to start, L has not arrived. After much frantic calling and texting, she eventually says she'll be late, arriving at about seven, which is too late to speak, but okay for judging.

So. I am not judging. I am speaking at Cambridge. A prestigious event. Universities sending their best teams from around the world. Speaking with a fresher partner I didn't get to know beforehand. Nervous, much?

I resign myself to it. I figure I should just treat this as a session. Even if we get to the bins, we're bound to win at least one room, or come second or something.

Round One: THW reduce welfare payments to parents whose children break the law.
Position: 2nd Opp
Result: 4th

The SOAS team who eventually broke to the final were 1st Opp. They stole all the material and left us with nothing to work with. I thought we might have at least scraped the 3rd, but oh well. The team that did come 3rd didn't do anything but 4th the rest of the competition, so we really ought to have beaten them in that room. But, it happens sometimes.

Here, we ate a quick dinner. Chicken and stuffing panini. N's face was a little long, but I took it on the chin (as always).

Round Two: THB that it should be illegal to incite others to boycott an election.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 2nd

Success! 1st Prop talked a lot about boycotting, which isn't really the key here. It's incitement. That's the world. So, we talked about that. The three judge panel were split on my summary. Two of them thought it was massively kick-ass, but one (the chair!) thought it was less so. So, we could have got the first, but I was still pleased that we'd recovered from the previous room.

Then it was chilling out time, and then onto our crash to sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, we wandered through Cambridge, getting pretty lost and eventually arriving at the Union, where muffins and croissants were the breakfast options (like!)

Round Three: THW replay international sporting events if an extreme umpiring error affects the result.
Position: 1st Prop
Result: 4th

It's a motion that's easily countered by "What about live video replays?" so we had not a lot of hope to begin with. Through some stroke of fortune, one of the Euros finalists had managed to get a 4th and 2nd coming into the third round too, so we ended up meeting in this room. He tore N's speech apart, then when I did mine, I got his name wrong... He was partnering someone who could have easily been his (more excitable) twin, so, of course, having a 50/50 chance, I got the name wrong. How embarrassing.

Up to this point, we were told where we'd come in the debate. To create tension for the potential breaking teams, the judges would not tell us in the rooms anything - not even personal feedback. However, due to the glory of The Tab (results sheet), I was able to find out afterwards.

Round Four: THBT the USA should pay war reparations to Vietnam.
Position: 1st Opp
Result: 1st

When a motion says "This House Believes That", it's supposed to be arguing on principals. Are the USA responsible for Vietnam? Will war reparations help Vietnam? As Opp, you're generally supposed to counter those principles with other principles, or just take theirs to pieces. What we decided to do was talk about practicalities of paying the money. Which I thought was a dumb idea, except it worked. It's a little like saying that everyone should give to charity, but if you're so poor that giving to charity would cause a greater harm than the one you'd solve with the money, then you shouldn't give to charity. I also talked about "money not fixing culture" and "punishing the young for crimes of the old". They seemed to like it anyway.

So, convinced we'd lost the last room in a blazing flame of glorious awfulness, I was just hoping for a motion I could just bash around the room. And then it arrived. It's as if all the debating god just shone their love upon me.

Round Five: THW allow children over the age of 13 to obtain gender-reassignment surgery without parental consent.
Position: 2nd Prop
Result: 1st

This was a topic about which I knew both facts and heard experiences. I knew the challenge would be transferring all of this into a debate-analysis speech, and I did this. I shot down the transphobes at 1st Opp, I spoke beautifully analysed truths, and I just felt damned glorious giving that speech. I came out of that room knowing it'd gone well, knowing I'd won. I was just beaming.

So, getting the tab back, I was expecting to have won the last room. I was stunned to find we'd won the fourth too, and we ended up 50th on tab, out of 108 teams.

Best of all, I was the highest speaker on tab for our institution! Glory and fame was mine (for the next four days or so), but still. It shows how far I've come since that day when Ed destroyed me in the prostitution room in fresher year and I just cried for hours.

Life was as good as it possibly could be.

Debate nerdery, at its finest.

So, just over a week ago, I went to an IV - this stands for inter-varsity, and it's what we call debating competitions. The fine institution of Cambridge was hosting this. They changed from open motions to closed. Let me explain to you what this means, for you non-debaters and noobs out there.

When we debate, we have two teams pretending to be the government in power, and two pretending to be the opposition. We speak alternately - prop, opp, prop, opp - until everyone has spoken once. We debate about motions, things that should be either put into law, or considered as a moral standpoint. The first speaker proposing the motion has to set up the debate. They clarify key words, if necessary, and then outline a procedure if they want to implement some sort of scheme related to the motion.

This is the type of motion you see in closed motion debates.

This House Would Legalise Drugs.
This House Believes That The USA Should Pay War Reparations to Vietnam.

The motion is clearly telling you the debate is about drugs, or Vietnam, and that is what you debate. If you're not debating that, you will not win. If the first proposition team decide they want to debate about monkeys and housepets, they will lose.

Open motions are another kettle of fish. You get almost non-sensical motions, such as:

This House Would Fear The Reaper.
This House Would Raise The Roof.

You're not supposed to literally debate reapers or roofs. If you are the first proposition team, you will have come to the competition with your favourite motion to propose. The motion is purposely vague so that the debate is basically about whatever the first proposition want it to be. In this case, if they want a debate about monkeys and housepets, as long as they can tenuously create a link between their motion and the "motion" set before them, they are good to go. (Of course, if it's a silly idea, the opposition should tear them to shreds, and the proposition will lose.)

For both styles, you are told what side of the debate you are on, and you have fifteen minutes from the announcement of the motions to prepare for the debate.

In closed motions debate, everyone has fifteen minutes to say, "This motions is about Vietnam and reparations, okay. Let's think about those things." In particular, opposition know what they are facing and can prepare ideas that will most likely be relevant in the context of what the first team say.

In open motions, the first proposition team have fifteen minutes to perfect their brainchild. The other three teams have fifteen minutes to grab some coffee, take a slash, flirt with the judges, and wonder what the frak they are going to eventually debate about.

What this means is that, in open motions, the first speaker for the opposition has the length of time that the first proposition speech takes up to prepare.

Some love the thrill of not being prepared and just running on adrenaline. Others dislike the inevitable drop in quality of debate (although some open rooms get fabulously zany).

So, some people liked the change to closed, others did not.

The general consensus was that Cambridge did it to improve the image of the IV from "fun open tournament" to "Worlds prep", where Worlds is the World University Debating Championships and is considered to be A Big Deal to debate folks like myself.

Coming in the next installment... how your intrepid author got a room with a Euros finalist, ignored the advances of a soon-to-be lawyer and got medical advice from a drunken med student.

Oh, the things people say about you...

So, there was some Exec Drama. Resignations potentially flying, communication breakdown until ours ears bled, lack of cohesion. So, one emergency exec meeting later, and some of the air has been cleared.

Ents are resigning (again). It's a shared position between two guys, and constitutionally, if one half resigns, they both resign, since we elected them on the basis they'd both be there. So, one half resigned, the other followed. They'll work until a replacement is found, sort out a handover, and then that'll be it.

Anyway, part of the meeting was a Snap Cup. I've never done this before! We wrote anoymously about everyone in the exec, what we liked about them, and what they can improve on.

I thought I'd share what people said about me with you. I found it really interesting, because I feel like I've grown as a person over the past couple of years, and it's nice to know what's working.

Here's the good stuff!

• Showing commitment by organising socials
• Pushing the sober socials ideas
• Saying good stuff in meetings.
• Contributing to the society
  
• Being nice to everyone
• My unique (and refreshing!) perspective on life
• Being affable and charismatic (I had to ask what affable meant!)
• Being generally amusing
• Being "blunt, honest, fair, women-focused". (I liked this one the best)

Here's the stuff people suggested I work on...

• Adhering to rules and regulations without thinking about the effects my remarks have
• Speaking up in exec meetings
• Not being present enough (I guess this would be socials)
• Accepting that everyone's in the society for different reasons
• Letting others help me.

It's interesting how a couple of the comments contradicted (like the meetings comments!), and I do disagree on some of the criticisms. For example, it's good to have some Rules Nuts on board, so that some sense of continuity can be preserved in the society in the form of written rules, that evolve to reflect the society's views. However, it was very interesting to see myself from that side.

I know that I'm not the same as the majority of students right now. I'm not clubbing anymore, I'm drinking much less, and I'm getting very sensible sleep right now (not just sensible amounts, but sensible times too!), so that does make my list of "Stuff I Like To Do" quite different from others. I would never say "No clubbing because I don't like it" because I'm not the whole society. But, I'd like to think that there were a few people a bit more like me, just wanting some chilled out activity fun sober socials.

To sum up, I have a quote from one of my favourite lecturers, Jose...

Life is as good as it can be.

So, where have you been?

I've been... around. Busy. Very busy.

Third year is supposed to be less busy, at least in terms of lectures. With 15 and 18 CATS per one-term module, instead of 12, hitting the same number of CATS as I did last year (give or take a couple) should mean I actually have more free time?

Well, not exactly. If your timetable includes four 9am starts, two days of 9am-6pm, and one until 5pm, it doesn't bring the biggest grin on your face. Luckily, my body's easily adjusted to "get to bed at 11, wake at 7:15", and the only side effect is that I wake up at about 8:30 at the weekends, instead of enjoying a lie in. Oh no, more productive weekends! :p

I've been really getting into doing Pride things. I've been to most of the Monday/Wednesday socials at the Duck, going to the Welcome Buffet, attending the OGM, and even putting in motions. We now have an Ethnic Minorities rep, and I've become That Person Who Actually Reads The Constitution, and it's always good to have one of those.

While the kitten's away, however, it seems that the mice have been playing - and not nicely, either. Thankfully, the threat of returning to a broken home has pretty much subsided, and the process of healing the rifts begins. M, D and Brother all went to Paris, and as far as I can tell, it went quite well.

At uni, there are freshers! Masses of them. Any time I see a cute one, I always get a twinge of "They look REALLY jailbaity", because most of them are just 18. I have some Maths kids, and I teach them how to converge sequences. I also have Pride kids, one of whom is on the exec already. My families tend to be quite exec-oriented; my last husband was Campaigns, my current hubby is Secretary, and out of my first brood came the current Bi Rep. Weird!

Generally, life is good. I've taken to being incredibly optimistic about pretty much everything. Even the stuff that's unjustifiably awful. The only thing that really gets me is the speed of the bloody internet. How fucking slow can it be? I've had dial-up that was faster than this!

I've decided to knit a sweater. The idea is that it will fit my skinny 14-year old brother (although, by the time it's actually done, he'd probably be my skinny 15-year old brother). It's a pretty shade of deep turquoise.

I still have the same boyfriend. We went on holiday to London. We ate dinner together on the bed, and watched The Truman Show. At some point, I gained a tractor beam (don't ask). I still think he's wonderful.

What more is to be said? I could say more, but I'll leave that to another post. Until next time, faithful reader.

Relationships.

Aren't they horrendously complicated? Not to mention messy, painful, and rather more like childbirth that one would like to admit (except you'd hope a relationship's length isn't measured in hours!)

Two of my friends are in a relationship, L and A. I knew they were long before today's Facebook status alerted me to the official happy news. They never told me, even went as far to obscure certain details so I wouldn't know, but somehow I just knew. Perhaps it's some hidden Girl Instinct I didn't know about.

I am happy for them. If there's anyone that can handle A, it's L (and vice versa). They're both emotionally fragile (in different ways), so hopefully they will look after each other.

However, L frequently blogs about A. Not just the kind of crap I write, about how I still have a partner who I love or want to bone, but the kind of stuff you ought to be telling your partner first, not the internet and all your friends. Shortcomings and whatnot. I assume that this means A doesn't have the address to the blog. This is fine, you're entitled to hide whatever you want or need to in a relationship. But... I just hope that L isn't scared to say to A that there are something things that could be improved on, and isn't just going to blog about them forever.

~~~

In other news, back at uni, and the summer holiday, once again, seems to have simply not existed. I feel slightly disconnected from debating, and I suppose getting back into the pattern might make me feel something again, but... I dunno. I don't go out drinking with them, and I am definitely not interested in pub crawls, and I feel like if I'm not in the exec, I'm not really an integral part of the society. I also feel like I'm at the fringes of Pride, despite being on the exec. Again, don't drink a lot, don't like clubs and dark places. I just like to sit, chat, and get to know a person's story. Given that most outgoing people at uni do love their drink, it's a little hard sometimes. I just don't want to drink as much as I used to. It's expensive, you lose hours of your memory, and I don't even need to go on.

Time to go downstairs, make some tasteh tasteh food!

Thank you, Professor Jones.

He was my favourite lecturer in second year (combination of actually being interested in what he taught, and just liking him). In the lectures he would do, he'd write quite swiftly, and as a result, often misplace the bars of t's. So, we spent a good deal of time studying "integralion". Which I enjoyed immensely, since lions are one of my favourite types of catcat.

Every now and again, we'd be looking at "partilions". I actually drew pictures of a partilion in the margins of my notes. They'd often look like this:



You can tell he is a partilion because of his long brightly coloured hair, and dancing shoes.

Sometimes, we'd be seeing quite a lot of funclions.


The step funclion is going for an 80's vibe here. You can't really do a step class without legwarmers. And, the regulated funclion just looks groovy and cool.

There are many more lions in maths than the university prospectuses would like you to think.

Online punctuation.

When you are speaking, you don't think about punctuation much. You pause at the end of sentences. You pause in between items of a list or between phrases, but for a shorter time. You pause between words, so that you can tell what's being said. You raise your voice in certain patterns for excitement, puzzlement or questioning. It's instinctive for most, and you don't even think about it. That's why it's so hard for a lot of people to use punctuation properly when it comes to writing.

We have spaces, commas, fullstops, colons, semi-colons, hyphens, dashes, brackets and all sorts for written communication. When I say written, I mean formally written. Letters to your mother, essays for your tutor, resignations from your job as Head Fry Chef in Floppy Burger. In this context, you can't rely on instinctively knowing how long your pause should be, or what tone you want to convey. You have to select which punctuation mark is appropriate. It's usually pretty easy. Full stops for long pauses between sentences, commas for shorter ones in between phrases and items in a list. Question mark are for questions; exclamation marks are for exclamations.

When you write online, it's different again. You have the same rules as a written letter, except you have the instant conversation factor. It's the half-way house between a letter and a phone call. Unfortunately, it's instant like a phone, and impersonal like a letter - try raising your eyebrows with punctuation. So, punctuation becomes your sole medium for conveying tones and emotions, and with the instant receipt of your message, every dot counts.

(This is obviously only applicable to those who would use punctuation in the first place, and not the type of internet user who strips words of vowels and meaning, abuse exclamation and question marks, and generally make me want to ban them from using technology with keyboard-like facilities until they learn to follow the goshdarn rules. Grammar Nazi? Only a little.)

For example, I greet a friend on Facebook chat: "Hi!"

I use the exclamation mark to convey that I am pleased to see her online, as we haven't chatted in a very long time. She tells me she is busy, and she hopes to talk to me soon. I begin writing the "Okay" in response, but I hesitate before hitting Enter. What do I put after? A full stop is rather final. It might imply that I'm in a strop with her for being too busy. An exclamation mark is even worse. A question mark is confusing and inappropriate.

This is starting to become worse than trying to decide what to wear to work today if you're my mother. She could easily spend two hours before bed, and one hour in the morning, deciding.

So, I opt for nothing. I send the message, "Okay", with nothing at the end. Crisis averted.

In fact, the general etiquette of my friends is to either fully capitalise, punctuate and write formally, or drop the capitals and use punctuation for effect. So, the full stop instead of a blank, question mark instead of a comma, it's all a new type of grammar in itself.

Phew. Isn't it tough going sometimes?

Gym-tacular!

I woke up yesterday morning at 9 am, to enjoy my first day off work with nothing planned to do. Since it was a Monday morning, that meant that by noon, I was supposed to be thinking of getting ready to go to they gym for 1 pm.

By 11:30 am, I had finished watched America's Next Top Model, and was lying in bed, lazily watching what was up next, checking out Spotify, practically falling asleep.

I was still in bed at 12:30, just lazing. I managed to get myself out of bed eventually, and made it to the gym by 1:30, which was good.

No gym on Wednesday, I don't think. I'm working (12-3), and I'll be too tired.

I have work today. Hooray! On the "this is what you'll be paid" sheet, I was missing five hours, so I need to check that out with the manager. I have... ten hours of work this week. So, it's not dire, but it's not great either. Such is the lot of a part-time worker earning more than £3.50.

Why Harry is both wrong and right.

In one of my favourite films, When Harry Met Sally, Harry proclaims firmly that men and women can never be friends, because the sexual tension that inevitably arises ruins the friendship.

I think that, in terms of sexual tension, I don't think I've ever had a close friendship with a man that didn't have some element of attraction in it. I'm not talking about the casual friend, the colleague, the old schoolmate - I mean the type of friendship where you talk frequently (more than once or twice a week under normal circumstances), you share intimacies, moments, injokes.

I don't have many close friends. You see, I have circles of emotional/friendship intimacy, which are rather different in structure to my circles of physical intimacy. I have the Inner Core, the handful of people who are very special to me - I would want to have these people around me if I was upset. There's the Outer Core, people who I enjoy having around me but maybe wouldn't call on them first to sit with me if I was sad, but I'd still be not uncomfortable with them seeing me in a state. In the Cores, I have around seven people. Sadly, a lot of people I interact with very warmly and affectionately are not in my Cores. It's not because I do not love them, it's just a more detached form of love.

Now, I have a friend, T. Over the course of the two years I've been at university, he's transitioned from outer circles to Outer Core, maybe even Inner Core. It's strange. When I first knew him, I was attracted to him, in the way that a interior decorator is attracted to an undecorated room. After some while, events and drama, we arrived at this summer, and we spent night after night talking into the small hours about anything and everything. My life, family, friends, lovers, and the same for him. We became very close very quickly. And, the initial attraction I had for him faded and merged into my growing respect and interest in him.

Then he went away. He's in a place with no internet, and he's been there for several weeks now, and I missed him. And, he missed me. He wrote me a letter, and it was enjoyable to read. I'm going to begin to write a reply before I head to bed.

So, what am I trying to say? Well, here I have a close male friend, whom I am not sexually attracted to. I was attracted to him before, but not now. I don't know how long our friendship will last in its present state. I imagine it fading to someone I like to talk to on occasion, but not with the same intensity and frequency. Still pretty intimate, maybe, but not quite as often.

Still, it's nice to have several people who don't mind being on the receiving end of my rants. It means that it's not just one poor person who's inundated with details of my not-so-interesting life/opinion.

A thought.

There are so many extremely interesting people in the world... and I will never be able to find and get to know them all.

This makes me feel slightly sad.

Kennedy-fail.

Ted Kennedy had life fail a couple of days ago. This made me feel a little bit sad.

It wasn't because of his seniority in the Senate, or all the good work he did in his career, or the end of an era of Kennedy presence in American politics. Oh no.

My first thought was the movie When Harry Met Sally. I was thinking of the bit just after "Baby fish mouth!" when Harry and Sally are talking to Jess and Marie respectively about the dates they brought to the little gathering. And, Harry's dating someone quite a bit younger than him. And he says to Jess, "I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, and she said, 'Ted Kennedy was shot?'" which causes Jess to giggle.

And, that was my very first thought when I heard that Ted Kennedy had died.

Wednesday, unrelated to Sheffield.

Today I used snooze on my alarm clock when I woke up for the first time in ages. Since going to the gym, I've had more energy in the days, and not had a nap since I joined, but if I go to bed too late, I'm still tired in the mornings. So, as soon as I've done this post, I will be going to bed.

I am lucky; tomorrow, my shift at work doesn't start until 2pm, so I have time to have a leisurely breakfast, watch America's Next Top Model and eat a light lunch, since my shift isn't long enough to take a break.

I like this cycle of Top Model that's on Living at the moment. I think that, since while I've been on holiday, I have watched from the very beginning of Cycle 1 all the way through to today, which was the third episode of Cycle 4. This is the cycle in which Tyra goes insane when a girl laughs off her elimination, as opposed to having an instant nervous breakdown. If you're really bored, go to Youtube, and search "Tyra goes crazy". Pretty easy to find. This is also one of my favourite cycles because of Kahlen, the shy girl who loses out to the winner for not quite pulling off "the Covergirl look". She's given up the modelling gig, and she is a bartender.

I was looking through Facebook pictures, and I saw some of the time David's sister came to visit him, and we had a laugh in his hall's kitchen/dining area. I really miss him... I miss not being able to sit with him quietly and just look at him and feel happy. I talk a lot sometimes, and forget just how nice it is to just exist next to him. For some reason, it makes me feel very happy, even though it's not something physical to hold like a gift, or something that's happening, like a birthday or something exciting. It's just... nice.

I got bit by insects; once on the side of my face, next to my ear, once on my neck.

There was some football violence yesterday in Upton Park, where West Ham were playing. This meant that Mother went to Finsbury Park instead to buy hair products, and they were more expensive there, but she was worried that there'd be a lot of mess from the rioting and chaos.

I went to the gym. I slacked off on the bike, and I should really try harder. There's two different types of stationary bike at the gym, and I think I might try the second type tomorrow, to see if it's any better for me.

I have stabbing needle pains in my gut, my arms, and my legs.

It's midnight-ish. I am going to braid my hair, and then go to sleep so I can wake up in time for Top Model tomorrow morning at 10am. Besides, getting up past 10am is pretty decadent, isn't it?

Developments at work.

The median and modal age of the employees at the shop I work in is seventeen. A lot of them work the occasional 10 hour shift (8am to 6pm). However, it's been called to the attention of management in our store that under 18s shouldn't be doing this. So, all the shifts have had to be shuffled around to accommodate this change. The upside of this is that I get an extra shift next week, and potentially more shifts in general!

They've started to accept me at work. They show this mostly by good-naturedly teasing me. They ask me a lot if I have swans and ducks in the lake in my back garden, because I'm posh. I always felt a bit different from all of them, because they almost revelled in their lack of a good GCSE grade in Maths (D was the highest). But... they seem like quite nice people, really, and it's not horrible to work with them at all.

I kinda have a mini-crush on a girl I work with. She's pretty and generally quite nice.

Pay day is coming in a week's time!

Student debt.

Students starting university courses this autumn can expect to graduate owing £23,000, a survey suggests.

- BBC

So, everyone's saying, "Poor students! So much debt to start their working lives with. How will they cope?"

There are two kinds of debt the average student gets themselves into.

Type One: The Student Loans. This covers tuition fees and maintenance loans. You never have to pay a penny of that until you graduate and earn at least £15k, you pay it off automatically from your salary bit by bit, and the amount you pay per month is proportional to your income, so it's always a manageable amount to pay (in theory).

A lot of people don't understand about the way student loans work, and assume they work the same way a regular bank loan works, with the corresponding difficulty getting loans and mortgages in the future. First, the interest on the loans is much smaller than a normal loan, so you don't get shafted quite as badly paying it off. Second, it doesn't affect your credit rating at all. Third, if you never earn more than £15k and don't manage to pay it off, you don't get angry men taking away your car/house/firstborn to pay off the debt. So, this sort of debt is (mostly) harmless.

Type Two: Proper Debt. This is what happens when, after you graduate, all of the sudden, your interest-free overdraft becomes a Proper Overdraft, with charges and interest. This is what happens when you fail to pay off your credit card bills, and you end up just about getting the money together to pay off the interest each month. This IS the sort of debt that can cause credit rating troubles.

However, a student may be forced to use their overdraft if the loan falls short, or parents can't give as much financial support as is required, or if work doesn't pay enough, or is unavailable, or incompatible with the type of study that is being undertaken. (Unfortunately, everything in this paragraph applies to me in varying severities. Yay!)

So, really. Most of that £23k of average debt is Type One, and shouldn't be worried about too much. Considered for a while, but not the sort of thing you should lose sleep over. It's the bit that the maintenance loan doesn't cover that you should really be looking at, if you're worried about not making ends meet.

Now, what would happen if the government allowed universities to charge what they actually wanted to for tuition? That's up to £30k. Of course, you would have to maintain a similar system to what we have today; £30k is more than the average yearly salary in Britain - not many families have it just lying around to pay upfront. So, let's say we keep the current system of not paying before you reach the £15k mark and paying off a small, manageable amount every month. Would you actually be able to pay off £100,000+ worth of debt over a lifetime of work without lifting the amount required to pay off a month? I doubt it.

This university thing sure is tricky.

(I might moan sometimes, but I'm pretty glad I study in the UK. It would be so much more expensive to study at MIT for four years, and there's very little government support.)

"Is going to university worth it?"

The BBC has a Have-Your-Say section, where people can post their opinions on a topic. The title of the post is today's topic.

I am exactly halfway through my degree right now, chronologically; in terms of weighting, just under a third of the way through. I have friends that didn't go to university at all, and I have friends that dropped out. I have friends that are getting, or have got, degrees from the Open University. So, there's a lot of different university stories in there.

Reading the comments on the website, people are focusing on the debt and whether it's a good investment for a career that may never materialise. One even said that degrees with no direct employment benefit shouldn't be offered, so that students don't waste their money. That comment upset me; not everyone goes to university to just get a headstart up the corporate career ladder! I know it's not the common thing, but quite a few of my friends are looking to remain in academia, and their degree is the first step in getting the PhD, and then onto the office in the University of Sweet-and-Awesome. It's money you spend that never really gets the wages back, but you do your subject for love.

I am of the opinion that the 50% university attendance target the government has for school-leavers is absurd. One of the smartest people I knew at school dropped out of university, not because he wasn't smart enough, but because it wasn't the right place for him to be. He had a job that he could learn as he went, they offer training as he works and he's happier now, an employed university drop-out, than I saw him before. If that could be the case for someone academically bright, with three As at A-level, and all As and A*s at GCSE, I'd hate to think of less bright people who aren't suited to the academic environment and the self-disciple required to do a degree who feel like university is something you should do, simply because it's something you should do.

In a recession, some school leavers will fear the job market won't be able to offer them the career they want, and so defer it for three years by doing some degree that might not be useful, but simply buys time. I can't decide if this is good or bad. It's good to get a qualification, spending three years gaining skills that are needed to succeed at university. It's bad if you spend three years drinking, partying, not studying effectively, not learning skills, and scraping a pass. Nowadays, the big graduate employers are looking for 2:1 or above (2:2 if you're lucky and they are particularly interested in relevance of degree). So, it's not really worth it if you're not going to get that.

Also, there are more mature students hanging around - people who entered the job market, realised that a degree would quicken their progress up the career ladder and decided to study for something. That's what happened to my friend, but he kept working while getting a degree with the Open University. He's now got a degree, but I'm not entirely sure that's changed much for him.

So, back to the question. Is university worth it?

If you seek solace in the hushed corridors of a library, find comfort in a proof outlined on a blackboard, look forward to discussing Voltaire with intellectual peers, university is most definitely worth it. (Can't say they discuss his works much in my current workplace.)

If you want skills to progress in the career ladder, I reckon the Open University could be a good option. Working to gain practical skills, studying to gain the paper ticket to faster career progression. It does depend on which career you want though. Some financial careers use so much maths that it's best to get a good degree in Maths or Statistics so that you can actually do the work!

If you're buying time, it's probably not worth it. You might lack the academic motivation to do well, and end up with a classification that will say to employers, "I spent three years partying, not studying".

For me, I'd say my choice to university was half love-of-academia, half buying-time. That's generally served me quite well so far. I've lost motivation at times, but my not-so-secret passion for maths always comes through to save me. And, I've proved to be smarter than I thought I was (although everyone claims they knew I was that smart already!) And, I met the best man in the world. So, is it worth it?

Most definitely, yes.

This post is about my body!

(So be warned.)

I had my one-on-one gym induction today. Expecting a Ben-Stiller-from-Dodgeball kinda man, it was a slight surprise to find my instructor, Matt, was a guy who looked pretty normal, and not scary at all.

We talked about goals. He did all my measurements; I decided not to look until just before I go back to uni, see if progress has been made. He took me through a workout routine - it was hard. I'm so madly unfit, it's quite embarrassing. After five minutes on bike, treadmill and crosstrainer, and a small set of reps on a couple weight machines, I was ready to go home already. I only did a half workout as well. Tomorrow, my first proper workout, will be challenging.

It's about a mile from my house, the gym. So, walking there and back is two miles extra walking already, and that's before I've even worked out. The plan is that I'll be able to keep up with the boys walking to lectures without moaning!

I have a headache. I wish I had some cake. Victoria sponge, perhaps. Or, a regular vanilla nutmeg loaf. Should I make a cake now? I'm not sure I can be bothered, sadly. Cake is a joy.

Cute idea time!

I learnt how to make American pancakes today. They're not an exact replica of a Proper American pancake, since most authentic recipes require the use of buttermilk. So, my result felt and looked like a good ole IHOP stack, but tasted like a Shrove Tuesday pancake. Not bad at all!

So, instead of dinner, I had pancakes. My brother had some too. We enjoyed them muchly. Then, we had an idea.

Our mother LOVES pancakes, you see. When we go to America, she'd eat them with some eggs and toast and a cup of coffee, and perhaps a bit of French toast. Every Sunday at home, after JesusGodbloodmagic time, we have a large breakfast, like a brunch. Sausages, eggs, fish fingers, beans, toast, bacon (if we have any) and lots of tea.

Our idea is to surprise Mother by making her a stack of pancakes to go with her usual breakfast. (No French toast though, because I don't like it as much.) This is aimed to be a gesture of my general appreciation for her existance. Aww.

I went up north again...

... and of course, my lovely boyfriend was both boyfriend-y and lovely.

There were a few people that made that trip kinda cool, in random encounter ways. I shall tell you about them!

• The scruffy boy who was crocheting. I pulled out my knitting (in the round, for portability) and his face just quietly lit up and we just created things out of thread until my train pulled up. I gave him a small nod before I boarded; he returned it.
• The very well-dressed man on the final leg of the journey back home. He had some text he was madly scrawling on, circling violently with a black rollerball, while he typed into his laptop. He had a plain, but battered, silver band on his left ring finger. He seemed like he might be interesting to the eye, but possibly disappointing if he ever spoke.
• The 16 year old who went up north to visit his mother. He's in college.
• The cute Virgin employee who told me what changes to do to get home.
• The friendly employees at an Upper Crust who gave me free hot water, sugar and milk so that I could do chai in between changes.
• The tall Scottish girl in Converses and straight-leg jeans reading The Bell Jar.
  

I really want to write. I feel like I'm right in that place. The play were, if the idea is there, the words just seep out of me, like blood. I feel so dry right now though. Descriptions are easy. If I find myself in a place, I could describe it pretty artistically, but... nothing original of my own is happening. I had the idea, the one about the building, and the outcasts and the torture, but I have no idea what story that fits into. I hope it fits into a story. It seems too good an idea to let go of completely.

If I could just fast-forward this summer, and get to the end of September, then I could just spend a week cuddling with my boyfriend. That's a lot more fun than fetching shoes.

Hmm.

I get to see the best person in the world on Wednesday.

I have discovered Spotify. It's like all the freeness of Youtube or torrenting music, with the warm fuzzy feeling of not breaking the law.

I think I suck at ring theory. This isn't a massive problem. Set theory intrigues me though. Sometimes, you have to ask yourself if you can ask yourself a question, and then you get into a recursive loop of logic and wtf.

I obtained ice-cream today. I think I might eat it while watching skinny, toned people try to become "supermodels".

I got fat. Well, I was never skinny, but sometime over the past two years, I'm way closer to fitting into size 16 clothes than I thought I ever would. I should lose a stone, but I can't be bothered.

It's getting darker in the breakfast room.

I can't afford books right now. Not *really*.

I am being taxed wrongly.

I am in love. I am so much in love that sometimes I walk down the street with a stupid grin on my face that I can't get rid of, and everyone stares, and I just look to my feet, then the sky, then the walls of buildings I past, and I just smile. I smile so hard because it feels so good.

It's just life, right?

Work-related moanery...

I moaned that I didn't want to go to work yesterday. My father got very upset.

I didn't really mean it like that I was ungrateful, but work is a bit of a drag, I'll admit. I have my first long shift today - 6 hours, with a 20 minute break. It's pretty annoying that the 17 year old kids I work with get more breaks and do somewhat less work than me.

Onward retail soldiers, marching as to sell!

(At least I've moved on from Bad Debating Jokes to Old Hymn Butchering.)

And how does this make you feel?

I met a guy at Euros, he was called Joe Brown. He joked that has two pages of the New York phone directory.

We became Facebook friends. I found he'd recently posted to his LiveJournal, and linked this to Facebook. I followed the link, and slowly backtracked though.

He had cancer.

I mean, I knew that I knew absolutely nothing about the guy apart from the information my eyes saw, and the information that the few interactions we had could tell me.

But still, it's very weird how you can think you know somebody because you have breakfast with them, and you've talked a little bit about their lives in a superficial way, but really, you know basically nothing.

It makes me think about how much I know about people I supposedly know.

Again, very little. I'm pretty bad at listening. This might be why. I know so many little details, scenes of my life they appeared in.

I feel... very uncomplicated and sad. I assume that under my seemingly simple emotion of "somewhat upset", there's a million reasons and thought-processes, and slight regrets and muted pride and all sorts.

I think I might read for a little while and go to sleep. It's been a very tiring seven days, all in all.

Euros 2009!

Well, wasn't that fun! 7 rounds of judging, quarter- and semi-finals for the main competition and the ESL teams, and two finals in the most gorgeous building in Newcastle.

I should thank a few people and things for making this Euros the awesome thing it was. Thanks to:

• Russell and Oskar for spending their time, money and sanity on us debaters.
• That guy in the room debating using the placebo effect who claimed that he could be a Vietnam marytr. I didn't get it then, I don't get it now.
• Joe, for being older, wiser and always willing to talk to me.
• James, for having breakfast with me on the first morning.
  
• Lewis, for being sexy (!) and good at judging.
  
• Ben, for being fun, Swedish-Israeli and giving me good feedback so I didn't have to judge bins anymore.
  
• Elena, for being beautiful and uncomplicated.
• Cal, Neil, David and Michael, for being themselves.
• Chris from York, who is still alive, but probably very ill...
  
• Dom, who wore a three-piece suit, Converses and Tardis cufflinks to the end of tournament Black Tie event.
• Sarah, who had a fit of hysterics at the most inappropriate joke I've ever told.
• The Turkish contingent, for the most enthusiastic cheering of Galatasaray A.
• The three Oxford teams in the final who had to accept that they were not loved as much as Tel Aviv A were for breaking to finals.
• Tel Aviv A, for wearing Stewie and Homer ties during their final speeches, and enduring TWELVE rounds of debates, since they broke to ESL semis and the main final.
• Oxford A, for winning. JLM, for best speaker.
• Dan for being best speaker for our institution. Woot!
• Mashall, for looking drop dead gorgeous on the final night.
• Nati, for the killer wink and general friendliness.
• Emile, for getting me home while I stumbled around drunk, being James Bond and making a gun shape with my fingers.
• Chris, for helping me realise how important love really is.
• Zal, for helping me realise that I can do whatever I want to.
• Caylee, for explaining Kosher to me.
• The guy with the Blind Guardian bag who never talked to anyone and just read and listened to music.

I have probably not included several people who were fun, amusing, or generally nice to me. But, there certainly were a lot! I had a really really great time. Next year, it's in Amsterdam, hosted by Bonaparte. Hopefully, I might get an opportunity to go to Euros once more!

We're doing okay!

After a big push on Sunday, I'm over half way to clearing out my room of old things, yay!

Just to finish tidying the room, clearing more stuff, bit of laundry, that kinda thing.

Woohoo, Wednesday! :D

Does motherhood have a sell-by date?

Today, motherhood is shown in the media for three reasons. The first is massive multiple births, which are becoming more and more frequent, given the use of fertility treatments and the increased probability of twins, triplets or even more. The second is girls that are still children themselves having babies. The third are the one I've been thinking about recently - the women who want to reverse their menopause and have a child.

I have some pretty strong feelings about these women, and to try and obtain a view from the other side, I watched a Channel 4 documentary on the subject. I don't feel a great deal differently about it than I previously did.

The documentary started with showing us a 72 year old woman who wanted to have her first child. Since she was single and very old, she would be using both a donor egg and a donor sperm. She would have to conceive with the help of IVF, which is never a guaranteed baby former - it fails even for younger women. She'd have to pump her body full of hormones to ensure the pregnancy would continue. She would put her elderly body through 9 months of strain and pressure. She would then have not only the natural problems of being an older woman, but have to care for a needy baby, then a hyperactive infant, then a clumsy toddler, and so on.

Of course, she has to keep living throughout all of this.

She said she wasn't selfish, she was confident and prepared to have a baby. This is all well and good now. Assuming she survives the pregnancy, she will have a child. Not only does this child have far more chance of having a birth deformity or defect (due to having an older mother), the mother is not immortal. It is very likely that the child will lose her mother far sooner than any of her classmates. Add to this the potential fodder for playground bullies when they find out that Sadie's mother is twice the age of everyone else's mum, and it's hard to see how this couldn't be a selfish decision.

Some of these women are single women, who were career driven earlier in life, then couldn't find a partner to have a child with. Who would look after such a child if the mother was to die? There is no father, and the rest of the family may be equally elderly.

There was one case that was interesting in the programme. A woman became one of the first to have a child with IVF in the 80s at the age of 50-something. She is now 70 and her kids (twin girls) are in high school. They are well-adjusted healthy kids, and they live with their biological father, the woman's husband, and they have a happy home life. This is a happy story, to show that there are circumstances in which having an older mother isn't necessarily guaranteeing gloom and doom.

However, personally, I would love for these women to really ask themselves why they wanted a child. It's not a right, to be able to have children. Sadly, some people cannot have children. And, personally, I don't think that you should reverse nature's way of saying "Stop forming babby... now."

Oh...

Sometimes I seem to invent problems for myself, to try and sabotage anything good that happens. As long as I keep it all in my head (like a crazy lady) then everything will be fine.

I slept so weird last night. I had A Deep Conversation with someone, and by the time we finished at 2:30 I was just exhausted emotionally, but not that physically. I was asleep by three. I woke up at 9:30, because I have to wake up tomorrow at 8:30, and it'll be a lot easier to achieve that if I try to wake earlier today.

Now, the eternal question. What for breakfast? What to do? etc etc.

I have to tweak the budget before my father reviews it, I haven't included extra costs like buying new plates. I really hope that I will get the money. We'll see.

Woohoo!

I just got a letter from Warwick, officially telling me I'm allowed to stay on the MMath course!

Inhale, exhale...

My bed started to sink in a corner again. Same side as the first time, but instead of the head of the bed, it was the foot. So, I settled into the other side of the bed to sleep. Just as I was drifting off, I heard a pretty loud crack. I didn't feel myself sink or anything, but to be on the safe side, I cleared half of the guest room bed, and tried to sleep there.

I was woken at 5:30 by my mother getting ready for work, which included some ironing and blowdrying of hair. Thankfully, my father did fix the bed, and I am most grateful. I think he put some extra nails in this side too, because I never sleep on the left hand side, because the right hand side is closest to the door, and I am intrinsically lazy.

I've been reading more Harry Potter. I'm nearly halfway through HP7, and I have been reading deliberately slowly to make it last. I was planning on taking my brother to the library today, to check out some books (in both senses!) but he went to our cousin's house, so I don't know when he'll be back. It also looks like it might rain all day, so I guess that plan is postponed until Monday.

I went for a bike ride yesterday. That was pretty nice. If the weather clears up today, I might go for a long walk (well, 2 miles).

Work tomorrow, zonino!

Slowly, but surely.

This summer, I have set myself the challenge of sorting out my room properly. Getting rid of old clothes and papers, books I don't read. A proper clearout.

So far, I've done most of the clothes and the bookcase.

I also calculated my budget for the next academic year. This makes me a little bit sad, because my job is a bit crap, and pays minimum wage for 6.5 hours of work a week.

However, I have my granary toast and chai tea in bed, and ANTM is about to start. So, it's not all bad :)

Veet, *this* is what beauty feels like.

Veet, for the uninitiated, is a brand of hair removal products, creams and wax strips.

Basically, you slap the cream or wax strip on your legs, arms, underarms (not recommended for hairy faces or muffs!), then wait. In the case of the cream, you're waiting for the hair to dissolve. The time required also gives you a chance to reflect on how you've just put something that dissolves HAIR onto your bare skin, and whether that's a wise move. In the case of the wax, you're just waiting to pluck up the courage to inflict pain on yourself. Then, you scrape off the cream and rinse, or rip off the wax strip and cry a little.

There are far more painful ways to remove body hair, such as epilators (I spell-checked this word; it suggested mutilators. Ha!) These handy little gadgets rip hair out of you with little barbs and claws and stuff. They look like fun on the adverts, but that's because the advert has calming feminine music, not the musical range of curses that really accompany this product.

I get quite excited talking about feminine stuff. Probably because sometimes I think about the hundreds of products the average woman uses in her lifetime to fit an social norm she's either expected to maintain, or an ideal she's expected to aim for, and I reflect on how it makes me feel, and whether it's worth making yourself feel like crap for "beauty".

The new slogan for Veet is "What beauty feels like." So, basically, once again, we're being told that female beauty is a hairless leg. Bollocks.

Confession: I haven't shaved my legs for several months now. I made this decision shortly after going out to see a friend last summer, and I was planning on wearing a really pretty floaty white knee-length skirt, since it was quite hot outside, and I fancied something light. However, I'd cut myself shaving on my knee (knees are so fiddly, I always cut myself there) and it wouldn't stop bleeding, so I had to opt for a pair of jeans and die of heat-related heat.

After that, I thought "What is the point of shaving?" I mean, women do it to feel beautiful, don't they? You get nice shiny smooth pins for two days, then the stubble comes in, and you feel a bit irritated but you can't really depilate with wax or creams unless you've got some decent growth first, and shaving every two days is rather time consuming. So, you wait, and you just feel ugly until it's time to remove the hair. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, I've just stopped with the whole palaver. I am probably quite lucky though, in the sense that I have dark hair and dark skin, so unless you happened to be stroking my leg, you probably wouldn't notice I haven't shaved, so it's not like people pick up on it and stare at me when I wear shorts.

For some reason, I think that if my mother found out I'd stopped shaving, she'd probably feel disappointed in me. Maybe it's because I'm just a pair of dungarees away from becoming a Full-On Raging Lesbian. (This is partly a joke: to be a lesbian, you'd have to define as a woman, and frankly, I'm not up for that.)

So, to those who churn out slogans for Veet: take a look at my legs, if you can bear to stand it. I think they're beautiful. I'm sure others do. And they're not hairless like a child's. They are natural. A pair of naturally beautiful legs.

Ha!

This might be weird, but...

When I was twelve, I wanted to have a disco for my birthday to herald the Beginning Of My Teenage Years. I shared it with two other girls (neither of whom I talk to at all anymore).

Despite the fact that my mother had done most of the work, everyone mostly thought it was their party, and it was also mine - like I was a afterthought.

A boy called Daniel was in my class, and I'd always thought he was someone I'd like to be arranged to marry, if I was unfortunate enough to be 35, unmarried, and desperately wanting a family. His dad was English and his mom was Jamaican, so he had the most gorgeous hair and skin, and I just quite liked him. Never seriously, just as a "Well, it would be perfect, if it wasn't for the complete lack of chemistry."

At the birthday party, he brought one present. It was for me. It was a kilogram of Cadbury's Whole Nut, which is my all-time favourite chocolate bar.

How did he know it was my favourite? He must have known I liked it, for chocolate is a risky buy given that so many kids don't deal with nuts well, and Whole Nut is about as risky as it gets.

For a long time, I read this simple gesture as his way of telling me that he felt exactly the same way as I did, and that eventually we will marry and have a loving and completely non-sexual relationship.

I still don't know what the chocolate meant. I still think to ask him, but he would probably be very freaked out that I still think of that moment seven and a half years ago, when I was shy and unattractive, and he was the quiet boy with the curly hair in the back of the class.

Misty, watercoloured memories...

I've been doing a few flashback-inspiring activities today: using the downstairs PC that I have barely touched since getting Audrey and going to university, looking through photos of the Christmas cruises and clearing out drawers and cupboards in my room.

I was on the downstairs PC to look through pictures of the cruise for some DVDs I am making for a few relatives. I put some video clips together in a reasonably nice way, and I had to design DVD covers. I like to work to music, so I checked out what music I had. I found a song I heard on Heroes, S1, and Miss Misery from Good Will Hunting. It was quite nice to find those.

I also played Tyrant by The Bravery, which I listened to a lot when I was with Matt.

Looking through the first cruise's pictures, I found pictures of the day in Trinidad. I remember this day. This was the day Ashley broke my heart. I remember, we didn't buy any internet credits on the ship because Dad said it was too expensive (however, he relented on the second). So, I was excited to get to Trinidad, because my cousins had a dial-up connection, and I could check my mail.

At this point, Ashley and I were getting on very well. We'd agreed that after the Christmas holiday, we'd properly sort things out between us and make it work. So, I checked Hotmail and Facebook eagerly... to find he was "in a relationship". And it wasn't with me.

I cried. I was hurt. Betrayed. Angry. I'd waited for him, and put things aside to wait for him, confident that this would be the time he didn't let me down. But, no. I asked him what had happened later on (I think this was once I'd got back to university) and he told me something that was not "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" because it didn't seem to quite make sense.

There was one photo taken of me on that day. I'm smiling, but if you look closely enough, I don't look happy. I wonder if my parents noticed at all.

Clearing the cupboards has been fun. I've gotten quite a lot fatter since high school, so I've got rid of nearly half of my clothes. I also read some letters I got. I found two from Matt (one while we were dating, one while we were fucking), and one from David.

David's letters are brief and succinct. They are also condensed pockets of written love to me. He thinks he writes crap letters but he is wrong because they are really not. They are so condensed and powerful that every time I read one, I always tear up just a tiny bit, because... I feel like he loves me so honestly. It's a little scary sometimes, but I just try to let myself trust him, and trust the Us, and... it's okay.

I didn't read Matt's first letter entirely. I read the second, much briefer, letter however.

It's been interesting to mull over these moments for a while.

Family lols.

My brother is a stubborn 14 year old with a love of the phrase "Yeah, but...".

My mother is a stubborn woman with a name that means "spear strength."

Cue the fireworks.

Sigh.

I have work tomorrow. 10:30 start!

I also failed at "house, etc." I want to apologise to people, but feel it's not really enough of an issue to apologise. I feel a bit rubbish though, if that's satisfactory.

It's too hot.

I have a new charger. If this one breaks, I'll get very upset with the good folk at Maplins.

I wrote down all the Sims careers in my notebook, and noted the pay of the highest position for each. Hacker is the best. Also good are Music, Entertainment and Pro Athlete. Crime pays better than Law Enforcement (by a significant amount!) and the worst careers are Slacker, Military, Law Enforcement and Politics. Just like real life then. I'd like to be a Mad Scientist; they get paid $1000 a day!

Made the error of weighing myself. I am Officially Fat, like, according to NHS charts and whatnot. But, thank you Madame Heatwave for being too hot for me to exercise. Maybe I'll sweat myself thin.

There's far too many carbs in this house, and not enough meat or vegetables. We had a barbeque yesterday, so we've got leftovers from that; pasta, rice, chow mein, curry sauce, chilli sauce. There was quite a bit Vegetables Ahoy! left, so I ate that with sweet potatoes.

Bleugh... Wednesday!

What I would like to say to my landlord.

I owe you five days' rent. That's fine. I'm surprised you didn't bring it up earlier, actually. And, you don't KNOW if one of the tenants paid it? You're trusting him to say "Well, actually, instead of keeping my £40, I'll just give it to you, even though I might have done it before, because you're not sure"? Protip: check who owes what before sending these sorts of emails.

Paraphrased from you: "Carpet was dirty; fridge needed cleaning. Would you want to live in a place like this?"

Answer: No.

Circumstances that were out of our control caused the state of the carpet and fridge.

When two new tenants decided to move in a day before we're out, we were a bit pissed. We're all trying to pack, we need all the space to be able to sort stuff, then they just take half of a lounge they're not entitled to yet. Then, it was raining. They weren't wiping their feet when they were coming in and out every so often, but even if they had, rainwater is dirty. The carpet will get dirty. Have you ever tried to move out, then have to clean up after other people who have no right to be in the house yet?

And, also, that carpet is IMPOSSIBLE to clean. You hoover and hoover, and it's still got bits on it. We had to spend £80 to buy a decent hoover to get the carpet clean.

And the fridge. Oh, that fridge. It's been leaking for MONTHS. We've told you repeatedly, and your response? "Try fixing it yourself." Yes, because since we are the landlords, we have the responsibility to provide ourselves with a working fridge. We did clean the fridge, top to bottom. We washed and dried every shelf and compartment a week before we moved out, but it just got dirty again because of the water. Please fix our fucking fridge.

I notice that you didn't mention how clean the kitchen was, in contrast to the thin layer of sticky in the kitchen that we moved into. Also, a lack of mention of the hard effort put into cleaning the bath, so that it looks white, and presentable.

And, the damp in my room. I think it's damp, but I'm not sure. I'm just fairly certain wallpaper shouldn't be bubbling like that. And, oh, the leaks I get in the corner of the room in winter.

But yes. Thank you for a great year of letting. We hope to have this much fun with your next year.

Girls!

I like two girls!

There is one who does Maths, in my year. She's very pretty, and musical. What I like best about her is her gorgeous curly red hair. And, she looks worried all the time, which is *adorable*.

There is also another girl I met at the last Rocksoc event of the year. I know very little about her, but she is tall, brunette, likes to DJ and likes women. All of these things are good.

Disclaimer: I love David. But, pretty girls remain pretty, even when you're dating the best David ever.

Exam results.

Variational Principles
76 (exam)
Second Year Essay
67.65 (overall); 69 (essay), 60 (presentation)
Metric Spaces
77.07 (overall); 80 (exam), 62 (class tests)
Differentiation
76 (exam)
Numerical Analysis
84 (assignments)
Vector Analysis
79.80 (overall); 78 (exam), 90 (assignments)
Geometry
67.83 (overall); 64 (exam), 90 (assignments)
Analysis III
67.86 (overall); 64 (exam), 92 (assignments)
Mathematical Excursions
79 (assignments/essay)
Algebra II
74.35 (overall); 70 (exam), 99 (assignments)
Introduction to PDEs
61.11 (exam)
Algebra I
75.94 (overall); 74 (exam), 86 (assignments)
Combinatorial Optimisation
59 (exam)

Average: 72.33
Seymour percentage: 77.38

Out of 13 modules, 8 were Firsts, 4 were 2:1s and one was a 2:2.

Why?

The BBC's news feed is useful. Click a button, choose your story. Simple, quick, targeted. Unfortunately, the feed headlines aren't always descriptive, and some are just plain deceptive.

Take, for example, this headline: Billionaire Stanford 'not guilty'. He only got arrested a week ago! How could he be judged not guilty already! Except, the article is about how he is pleading not guilty. Is it too much to add one word? It changes the entire sense of the phrase by removing "pleading".

Also, on the feed, there tends to be five or so comment/analysis type pages for each day. Those headlines are the worst. Honestly, Feature One Through Five is more descriptive. Here are some of today's - "Final Moments", "In crisis". Final moments of what? What's in crisis?

Grr.

Things that are currently upsetting me.

I decided to split my packing into four Phases, one to be completed on each day from Tuesday to Friday. Phase I was a resounding success; my bedroom was cleared of rubbish, and packing was started. Phase II was less successful, but still quite good. Some clearing of rubbish in the lounge was done. Phase III, today's phase, is the largest, and most important, since Phase IV is basically two hours of "What's left? Do it now." So, I need to be quite advanced with packing by now. Except, I am not. I have been sleeping all day, and I have no energy left to pack with.

The more I pack, the more I realise that I'm not living with David for 12 weeks. And, I will see him twice, if I am lucky.

No matter what results I get tomorrow, I will not be able to be happy about them for a long time. I find it hard to appreciate my own achievement because I always look at the bad things first. So, even if I do manage to get a First, I'll beat myself up over something, like modules I might have done worse in. I am not sure what I will do if I get a 2:1, or worse.

I am not looking forward to work. They're starting me on 7 July, seven hours a week until I'm trained, then hours based on who works the best. So, if they don't like me, I can't afford to eat next year.

Life is looking good.

A touch of controversy.

"Give the BNP some respect."

It's a funny thing for someone like me to say, really. I'm British on passport, but of Afro-Caribbean origin. My father grew up in the Caribbean, and my mother's parents moved to Britain from Dominica in the 60's. One of the BNP's main policies is to give people like my father, and my grandparents, money to repatriate, or basically fuck off home. So, I'm not the type you'd expect to be fighting in the BNP's corner.

I'm not really in their corner though. I'm just in favour of equality, democracy, and proper debates. None of this can happen if protesters throw eggs and make it impossible for us to hear what ideas they have.

I have taken the time to look at the BNP website, and look at some of their policies, read some of the articles, observe the comments. (I'm a firm believer in attacking an enemy with your eyes open rather than with second-hand information.) I've seen that some of the members are involved in rather unsavoury things, such as Holocaust denial, and there have been alleged links between violence and racial tensions and areas of high BNP support. (Don't quote me on this; I'm not entirely sure.)

However, I try to draw a line in my head between the BNP as individual people, and the BNP as a unit trying to "reclaim Britain for British people", to paraphrase. This line drawing enables me to think that, yes, they're not very nice people. And if the BNP got into power, the country would be fucked. But, for the sake of democracy, they should be allowed to speak. That way, mass audiences can easily see that their policies are flawed, if not outright dangerous.

If liberals attack them on the grounds that they're "not good people", or for fear of fascism, then we remove the opportunity to beat them in debate fairly. We promote them as martyrs. They've done nothing wrong as a party. They're legitimate, and the seats they won in Europe are a result of nearly a million people using their right to vote to support that party. By shouting at them, and attacking them, we give them the chance to say, "The current establishment don't want us to talk! They know that we are a huge threat to them, because we're a lot better!"

I'm disappointed that people voted BNP. I'm even more disappointed that the vast majority didn't vote at all. Voter apathy is reaching new highs, with the expenses just destroying what little faith in politics people had already. So, only those who are passionate vote. Who's passionate? Fringe party supporters, who see the mainstream voting malaise and realise their time has come.

Protests are important, I realise this. But, free debate and the chance to openly discuss and rubbish ideas is fundamental to democracy working as best as possible. We can't give the BNP the chance to win by sympathy. This is why we must give them respect as a political entity - only then can we truly defeat them.

Taking a closer look.

I like to keep up with BBC News; it's cheaper than a newspaper, and a procrastination device that actually leads to further learning, albeit not about perfect matchings or Gaussian primes. I saw an article today about how the hunger in South Asia has reached a 40 year high. I read it, and it mildly irritated me.

Journalism in general tends to annoy me for the main reason that they use statistics in the same way they use adjectives. They will twist them to make the text more emotive, more touching. Rather than letting statistics be open, frank, and speak for themselves, in a factual neutral environment. They become practically meaningless numbers to play with, rather than offering a reader real information.

First of all, in this article, we open with that 100 million more people are hungry compared to two years ago. Well, 100 million sounds like a lot, doesn't it? There's not that many people in the UK, so it can hit you to think that it's the "equivalent" of all of the UK starving, and a third or so of the people in France.

Except, we're not told how many were hungry two years ago. If, say, 100 people were hungry two years ago, that's a HUGE leap you've made, in relative terms. If it was 500 million hungry, adding 100 million is a smaller percentage gap, and you can put the rise into perspective properly. But, they don't want you to assess that; they just want you to think, "Gosh, that's a lot of people!"

Then, there's the obligatory wage comparison. "Millions of South Asian people live on less than $2 a day." Again, we're being lead to think "Wow! $2 can't even buy me a big enough soda to quench my mad Western thirst. How can they afford ANYTHING?"

Except, again, we're not being given perspective. For example, what's the cost of living in South Asia? Given that these people hungry, and not dead, $2 a day must be enough to sustain some level of life. Not enough to save, or afford a good quality of food or housing, but enough to stay alive. A lower cost of living does mean that a living wage is proportionally lower.

I've been watching a programme where 6 Brits go to South Asia to find out where food comes from. In the programme, they're given about £5 a day in some cases. This would get you the basics: somewhere to sleep, some food. Very few have enough to spend on luxuries, or save for travel. Some can't even afford to live with their families, since a wage doesn't stretch that far. But, they live. They survive.

So, $2 a day isn't good. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that it's taken out of a context. It's just there - a figure. A figure can only have the voice of what text it's nestled in. And when your text is telling you, "Gosh, aren't there lots of hungry people? Wow, they live off the cost of a bottle of Coke!", then that's what you end up thinking after you've read it.

Unless you create your own perspective, which you can only do by knowing something more.

Goodbye, Ruby Sunday...?

I like rubies! And emeralds. Yes... I have the best boyfriend ever, since he bought me emerald earrings for our one year anniversary. Yaaaaaay!

The anniversary was 11 days ago, but I've not been so good at the linear blogging thing.

Exams start on Thursday. I've been studying Algebra a little today, and moving on to Metric Spaces in the late afternoon.

Fall Out Boy's album, Folie à Deux, is quite something. I know it's not great music, but I just enjoy their energy. I'm still a fourteen year old fangirl inside.

Oh, I found The Simpsons online again. Will I ever study again!? Yes. Yes I will. :p

Frank!

I was in the living room, looking up various things related to Paralympic sports classifications and conjugacy classes when my housemate (the one I don't normally talk to) told me to come and see something.

There was a slug! On the side of the stairs! Just crawling vertically up. It was so cute, except it was in our house. So, I suggested we get a piece of paper for the slug to move onto, then put the paper outside.

So we did that. My housemate named him Frank. Frank the slug.

It was nice that we didn't kill Frank. He's slimy and quite pretty.

Hung up.

I'm still too hung up about the past. It was nearly four years ago. FOUR! Well, four on July 1st. I can still remember the f*cking date it happened on...

You'd have thought that I'd have stopped thinking about her by now.

But... still, I find myself thinking about her long dark hair, and the way it felt between my fingers. How soft and curly it was. I now recall how warm she was, next to me that night.

Goddammit. I don't care about her! She means nothing. Maybe it's just the idea of her that I miss; her being my first, something that unlocked a door I wasn't sure existed.

I still kinda owe her, I guess.

I can't believe she thought I was in love with her, that's quite funny. (Just like her to be that self-centred, actually...!)

The hunt begins...

I'm spending roughly 36 hours in my hometown, with my parents. During this time, I hope to job hunt.

The ideal plan is to wake up in time to get a lift with my father to the other side of town - that's where he drops off my cousin and brother so they can attend school. From there, I will do the two shopping parks, then move into town.

An exhausting task - I might ask my dad for some money for coffee.

I should probably get to bed then. It'd make things logistically easier if I do all the rounds early in the day. That way, if I do find positions, I can fill in forms over lunch, and go back round to hand in forms.

I should try to dress well tomorrow, make a good impression.

Breasts?

This post is going to be about breasts, but might wander.

I've just watched Kirsten's Topless Ambitions, and it was all about how, after 12 years of SMart and children's TV, she's ready for bigger and better things, and lots of presenters "graduated" from children's TV by having fairly sexy photoshoots. She's funny, and she decided to keep her breasts inside her clothes, and work on more stand-up comedy.

Breasts are... nice on other people, I have to say. Soft, round, warm, strokeable. (I had the pleasure of seeing some knitted breasts on the internet the other day, but the pattern to make the nipple was too difficult!) Being gay is really funny, because I really like breasts, but I can't seem to like my own, even though on someone else, I might find them quite appealing.

Most of the trans people I've met have differing relationships with breasts. Some want some, others don't want the ones they have, and there are some who are pretty okay with having breasts, or not having breasts. I met a transgendered person on a workshop, and they had larger breasts than I do (given I'm an E cup, this was quite epic), and they talked about how it was really hard for people to accept them as being transgendered, not just female.

How I feel about my own really does depend on how I feel each day. Sometimes, I have a day where I feel really womanly, and sexy, and having breasts like mine means I can wear the right tops, and just feel like a million fantastic-sexy dollars. Other days, I wake up, and I want nothing more than a big t-shirt and slouchy jeans to hide any sort of figure I may have.

I've never really *liked* them. I remember, being 11 years old, changing for games in the junior room, and, with the arbitrary social groupings, being nearest the door. I remember one day having a perfectly adequate vest, then next day, there were just *breasts* and I was a bit scared, and didn't know what to do. At the same time, another girl thought she had breasts too (but hers were puppy fat, which made everyone laugh. She got her revenge later, but that's another story).

From girls who were "late bloomers", I've heard a lot of "I was jealous of the girls developing first, they were so sexy and the boys loved them," but that was just the opposite case for me. I was massively uncomfortable with my body (and would continue until the age of about 18) and add this to the fact that I was a massive swot, and it's not the image of a sexbomb.

So, breasts. Mine specifically. They're not the ones you see in mens' mags, but I'd be really scared to touch a girl with breasts the size of beachballs and nipples the shape of bullets. It's not really that sexy. Natural is sexy. And, mine are most definitely natural!

They're okay.

They're not *bad*. They've got a size to them (an understatement, many might say!), and they're... pretty good. People do say they're nice.

I remember the first time I went to Marks and Sparks to get my first bra without my mother. Up to this point, we'd only ever shopped in Peacocks, so I'd get a cheap bra in the wrong size, because 8 years ago, breasts for women with D cups and above who shopped in Peacocks and Matalan didn't seem to exist. So, I went, and they told me I had a much smaller back size, and a much larger cup size, I was just amazed at the result.

I don't think any of my readers without breasts could really appreciate what a good fitting bra does for your figure, or your confidence. Clothes fit better, that's probably the first thing you notice. Then, once you've bought it, and you're wearing it out, you just feel... lifted. Your mood is lifted because you are wearing something that fits you and makes you look and feel good.

So, my verdict on breasts is this: they're pretty good. And, I have two. That's pretty good too.

Revision.

This post is a sort of reply to a post a friend wrote on her LiveJournal. She wrote about revision, and I will too.

At this present moment in time, I feel like I have got myself into a nice rhythm, consisting of good amounts of study and play.

I wake up in the morning, in between 8am and 10am. I spend a few hours relaxing; I will interweb, write a blog post, check out the news, Facebook, maybe knit a little, or watch David play Empire Earth. Then, I'll shower, eat a light brunch/lunch hybrid, then I'll go up to Housemate Matt's room, where we will work on assignment sheets for the modules we're doing.

In between 4-5pm, we will eat some toast. I might have a cup of tea or coffee.

In between 6-8pm, dinner will be prepared and eaten. Sometimes David cooks, sometimes I do. Sometimes we do it together. Sometimes I'll be absorbed in maths and then David will announce food is ready and that's really awesome, but unfair if I let it happen too much!

After dinner, there is cake and/or icecream (if there is any), then back to Matt's until I am tired, or I crash out.

Crashing out consists of my (already short) attention span fast approaching zero, being confused by simple concepts, and giggling until I cry. I don't always crash out, but it usually happens if I feel I haven't done quite enough for the day, and try to work too hard past 10pm.

I started revision last Sunday, and it took me a couple days to get into this routine. I have four lectures, one on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and this doesn't affect my schedule greatly, since they mostly occur before I'd start work for the day anyway. Out of all the days, Wednesdays are probably going to affect me the most, since I've designated them to be debating days - and desnigating a leisure activity means I get out of the house and interact with non-maths people, which is healthy.

Still, I'm averaging just under a sheet and a half a day. I've done 11, and I have 29 left to go. There are 31 revision days left before exams start. I might have to try and up my pace, if possible, but at worst it must remain steady.

I'm worried about not keeping pace though, since I have at least two weekends with plans coming up, and averaging a sheet a day would bring me too close to exams to be able to practice past papers.

I've been enjoying leisure times though. Before I start work in the afternoon, and after 10pm, I do have time to enjoy myself. David went out for a meal once, I went to a birthday party, we watch films, or HIGNFY, and we generally find time to chill out without going out.

Going out is expensive, and I've not been drunk for so long that it seems slightly pointless. I think I'm also getting A Bit Old; Rachel came over for a curry, and David, Matt, Rachel and I had a really awesome time waiting for the curry to arrive, and then eating it together at the table while talking. It was really nice to just enjoy that with friends.

I'd love a curry right now, actually.

Overall, I'm not too concerned about revision. I've never had a firm strategy before; it used to consist of reading through notes, writing down important theorems, getting bored, repeating, until a Crunch Point about 10 days before exams hit, and then I'd start exam papers, and panic because I'd been reading about but not practising the maths skills required. So, this time, I hope that doing all the assignment sheets will leave me feeling a bit more prepared on how to tackle questions.

I just have to keep it up now.