Today's "How to..."
Sep 29, 2003
"How to Scare the Fourth Years"
This was the notice up about registration for my special subject module (this year long fandango that I have to go through).
"Registration will be at 9:45 PROMPT in Room 1.17. Attendance is obligatory. Death Certificates Accepted."
Below it was the next, for another course: "All latecomers and non-attendees will be subject to terrible humiliation and punishment."
Yikes
baptised...
Sep 8, 2003
well that's the nearest I've ever got to bolting from something I undertook to do, in my life, ever.
I was so scared of making a public commitment to my faith that I was nearly straight out of the bapistry and over the fields just before the ceremony got underway.
Didn't help at all that I hate talking in public, and 80 people rocked up to support me, and I hate crying in public, but talking about my faith always makes me howl.
But after the talking, I was fine, the dunking was wonderful, I felt kind of fresh afterwards.
garrrghhhhhhh
Sep 3, 2003
decided NOT to fill in the little comments box at the end of the Foreign Office online application form
Somehow I thought that writing "I spent three hours in June and three hours now figuring and getting through all of this, the sessions time out to sodding fast, the code from the practice test (which you HAVE to do) expires so you have to redo the test (and try and remember as many answers as poss. 
), and there's no alternative way of doing it (and it's not Mac compatible but that doesn't affect me). I think being able to jump through all your hoops should get me in alone" was conducive to getting a job!
so darn annoying!!!!
and I have a stiff neck from staring at the screen all the time
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Back
Sep 2, 2003
Ok, back home now. Is a little strange. Is parents 25th anniversary so can't just collapse in a heap either...
Spent eight hours at Heathrow yesterday waiting for the bus home - time spent adjusting. Think I must have spent the first couple of them looking petrified. It was sooo unnerving (and expensive!!) But now I'm unpacked, pretty carved table in the corner, a window sill full of carvings and sandstone to pack to take up to uni with me, and 19 films ready to be sent off...
little green men in rwanda
Aug 20, 2003
appologises if letters are wrong; I have an incredibly wonky keypad - q is where a should be, a is where w should be etc....
anyway - am in Kigali (Rwanda capital) which has traffic lights and little green men at some junctions! which people actually obey!!!
this is very unusual for africa, but kind of suits Rwanda which is a crazy mix of extreme Africa - the city sprawls shanty-like across its hills - and western stuff, probably something to do with the huge nos. of NGOs and UN stuff out here.
However, still havent seen many mzungu, so for the kids in the countryside we are veryt odd!
anyway - we came to rwanda in a matatu smuggling shoe polish; off all random things, but it meant they took good care to keep us sweet, help us over the border and not drive too crazily
Kigali is a huge mess; still recuperating from the fighting, but very appealing none the less, and it has all the typical african street hawkers and kids.
yesterday we trawled the woodcarving stands and picked up a few goodies... Fi wants to bring home a cow skin rug!
today we went to one of the genocide memorials; at Nyamata, wxe got there after a bumpy bus ride, and got off too early but we did manage to land ourselves with a guide Gilles; a secondary school student; who walked us to the church and showed us round - his parents and some of his friends died there, its weird to realise that everyone over 10 experienced the genocide, and nearly everyone zill have connections to some of the memorials;
the church is a small place - about 10000 died inside it, in an attack that began zith grenades, another 10000 werer rounded up fro, the nearby countryside and killed in the church compound; The locals have dug some crypts in which skulls and bones are displayed, and there is a coffin - in an Unknown soldier kind of way - of a pregnant woman zho died in the massacre;
Rwanda itself is gorgeous - rolling hills; and snaking flood plains in between, the hills are very dry, it is the ,iddle of dry season, but the plains are a sea of green: tea, coffee, sugar cane and papyrus...
tomorrow we are heading south to Nyungwe forest; and back to uganda on sunday
oh and for those interested in the transport -( today we got piki-pikis - motorbike boda-bodas; which we sat on pillion and zoomed up the m
ain road-hill to the city centre!!!
Dropping In
Jul 30, 2003
Thought it was about time I stopped in!
I've been in Uganda for four weeks now, and its Gorgeous! I'm living at the base of Mount Elgon, and helping out at a hospice, mostly painting and decorating. A couple of weeks ago I went Whitewater rafting on the source of the Nile, which was fantastic - didn't quite manage to drown myself, but we did flip three times, and I bobbed along quite merrily!
Then this weekend we went to Kampala to spoil ourselves and do Mzungu things - like sit by swimming pools and eat ice cream!
Next weekend it's off to Sipi Falls, and then a week after we're going travelling - to a couple of the National Parks near Fort Portal, and then a week in Rwanda!
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So Long...
Jun 24, 2003
...Farewell, Auf Wiedersehn, Adieu...
Well, I'm off tonight - might get the chance to hop along before I fly to Kampala next week.
So have fun summers (or winters)
ta-ra
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I died and went to heaven
Jun 21, 2003
subtitled "I've now read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"
so be warned this will be SPOILER filled...
also be warned - this has got to be one of the best books of the year - I think it's probably the best J.K Rowling's written so far. And I cried - and I don't cry at books - when Sirius... nope, gonna do a Harry and refuse to say it - I don't want him not to be in the future Harry Potter books.
But really, it's such a fantastic book that I might have to forgive her - if only for "Witness for the defence: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore"
refreshing
Mar 6, 2003
Well, that was, refreshing!
Looky look - a vaguely revamped page. I'd just like to thank everyone who I shamelessly pinched GuideML from.
pwitty
Mar 6, 2003
ooooh, pwitty green Post Reporter badge has sprung up in goo! no more having to use Brunel to see it! *measures self for larger size of hat*
still, on a note designed to bring me back to earth, I am reading about the Witwatersrand Gold industry in the 1890s. I could be more bored. Possibly. For once the presence of Cecil Rhodes is proving a blessing. He's interesting. Unlike the Rand.
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The Human Pincushion
Feb 13, 2003
OK - all these needles meant I nearly wrote "pincussion" in the Subject line. I only had the rabies jab, not rabies itself!
I had five jabs - four rabies: intradermal (meaning a third of the full jab, only one year's protection and a third of the price, all jabbed in on one occasion) - so I had a bit in each limb. Then a typhoid in the left arm as well, which is now feeling a bit dead. All this fuss for two months in Uganda. Honestly. And I just signed myself up to have Larium again.
back from holiday
Aug 29, 2002
breathing again in all the fresh air, and recuperating from the claustrophobia of massing tall buildings. Don't get me wrong - I loved New York. My bank account level has dropped sharply, but still - all worth it 
.
Yes so anyway, I'm back. Had a fab time - saw many of the things to see (not all - is that possible) and am now on to planning next summer's trip. Hello East Africa!
And yes education is just something that gets in the way of my travelling.
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Starts counting down the days
May 11, 2002
Finally I got round to heading off to the student travel service. Been planning that one for ages now, and never quite got round to it. And bless them if they didn't have the cheapest flights I've found yet. So since I figured I wouldn't get any lower (short of going by kayak) I booked. YAY! 
I am off to New York and Boston! unfortunately not till August, but still, you know - something to look forward to 
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Smiles sweetly through a red wine haze
Dec 1, 2001
Just cos I thought I would, you know
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Settling in...
Oct 1, 2001
Finally getting settled in back at uni...
there are a lot of strange people running around like 
with cameras, or to Art History lectures, which is rather depressing, but they don't affect my life here that much.
The most annoying thing is that I'm expected to actually *work* this year... and as I have my lecturers for two of my tutorials I can't really escape - my third tutorial's with a woman who *looks* like a friendly school marm, and who sounds anything but... *trembles*
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Packing
Sep 8, 2001
Gerr, splat, yuk.
Hate packing. Especially on the epic scale required for University.
I seem to have sprouted excess clothes, cds, books, cutlery all of which need to go back. AND lets not go into all the little little weirdly shaped objects that seem to HAVE to go in somewhere. And the talking Eeyore who has to be packed delicately or he'll talk all the way to Scotland....
In Pisa
Jun 22, 2001
The Tower really leans!
sorry, I just never realised how much it did before. It looks so bizarre.
Having a blast away, just about coping with Italian trains - I mean they run on time, what am I supposed to do? I don't get to sit and read at the station for hours...
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Four in a Row
Mar 18, 2001
I never thought I'd see the day. The England Cricket team have won four test series in a row!!!!! Even beating Sri Lanka at home which even Australia couldn't manage.
Wonder why I still can't get optimistic about the Ashes
HMmmmm
Mar 13, 2001
New home.
finally got entries all up and running - how am I one of the few with journal entries up too - are they really that innocuous?
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Train Excuses
Jan 24, 2001
Let this be the start of a wonderful list of excuses train companies have come up with. I had the best one today - the reason why the train wasn't stopping at my station: The engine got damaged shortly after leaving Plymouth resulting in a loss of speed and power. Therefore it couldn't stop at my station (St Erth) because it is on a slight uphill gradient and the train wouldn't have enough power to get going again!
Other beauties include leaves, swans and cows having been on the tracks, the rails being too hot in the sun, as well as the old favourites - the wrong kinds of rain and snow.
Well what was that all about
Jan 17, 2001
Gave up trying to watch 'The Net' on TV last night. Crappy film - I mean you knew Jeremy Northam was going to be the bad guy from the second you met him. He was English - and happened to be into computers. And then of course he smoked and new a little too much about her.
So I came to see how my lil' page was ticking over. And it wouldn't let me in. Kept not letting me register, and then when I just came over to the page without registering it told me that the user (ie me) hadn't done anything to it yet. Talk about life imitating the movies - I was vanished. But then I couldn't find other people existing so I relaxed.
But what was that all about.
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Christmas Parties
Dec 20, 2000
Parental. Christmas. Parties. Three things not normally associated, and they actually went together rather well. As usual, every year Mum says 'Never again', and then every June she starts to enjoy the memories and we end up planning another (in June - she is that prepared). So Sarah and I watched the Africa video and reminisced. Katherine and Lisa decided I had at least one cute academic brother, so Sarah has decided that I have to pull him.
In my dreams.
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Life without a connection
Dec 14, 2000
I'd just like to say, I can survive, but if I have one I'm going to use it.
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Party Time
Nov 17, 2000
Yay!! It's Friday night and everywhere is partysome. Better and better - it is Raisin weekend and from now till Monday lunchtime debauchery, madness and mayhem rule. You see, this is St Andrews and we don't need certain future students to generate publicity for us. We can make our own!!!! 
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Hitchhikers in Philosophy Lectures????????
Oct 31, 2000
Strange worlds collide. Sitting there doodling randomly in my Philosophy lecture I suddenly happened to overhear my lecture trying to use the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything and the answer (42 if you've forgotten) as an example to prove that we can't understand the things we know unless we know how the world got to that conclusion......
And I thought, "Wow, I understand something in my philosophy lecture. Great." And then I thought, "Hang on, this is my life colliding with my education, this isn't meant to happen" and got very scared.
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