Ok, so I just finished that essay that I was writing last time round. It's about a thousand words longer than the recommended limit, but hey, it's a heinous question that has me comparing two major war zones without putting up any boundaries.

And it was pretty evil - come early last week I was just beginning to write it all up, and nearly decided to go start an easier essay. Only the fact that I weighed through Edmund Dane's British Campaigns in Africa and the Pacific: 1914-18 and I wasn't going to have done that for nothing. It's not a book I would even wish on my least-loved lecturer, read it sometime if you want one of the worlds more biased accounts of World War One.

Anyway - that's now done, only two more essays to go before I can remove myself for Christmas and revision. Actually the best news I had all week was the exam timetable - nice early exams, which frees me up for the January Meet, and then a nice long trip to Rome (this has been in the planning for ages - it's sustaining me). I'd be glad they were early anyway, since exams late in the schedule tend to leave me with no finger nails and a fortune spent on tea bags - after a week and half I've had enough of revision and my brain tends to refuse to absorb stuff.

So, last week was 'Reading' week. A week we get off mid-term to catch up on all the reading we've not done or prepare for the rest of the term. Or go on holiday, or home, or to check out hospitals in Manchester if you're Mary and Clare (St Andrews doesn't do the clinical bit of the medical degree, so the medics are got rid of after only 3 years), or watching the Lord of the Rings DVD if you're me. Actually that's what took the essay so long - I started writing it last Wednesday, finished on Thursday and was editing it on Friday when the parcel arrived, so I gave up.

Anyway - back to the non-reading week. Turned out everyone in my house went away the first weekend, which was rather nice as I could use up as much hot water as I liked, and cook myself nice things (I cook them nice things too - but steak for five is prohibitively expensive, so I just treat myself.) Mary and Jack were off on a hiking trip to the west coast of Scotland with the uni hiking club, of which Mary is President. She doesn't get to hike so much at the moment though, as she has a dodgy back - not that it stopped her buying new climbing boots at a price to make sane people flinch. Clare stayed in Manchester to visit friends of hers, and Dave went home. So I got to totally unwind, and catch up with other friends - go for nice ice cream, see Red Dragon, and so on and so forth (yes, life has been really very unexciting the last fortnight).

In fact I can't think of a major thing that has happened - everything seems to stop for Reading Week. This weekend, however, is Raisin Weekend. I don't have kids myself - sniff - but I might go and crash my sister's party and meet my nieces and nephews. I decided I'd only have kids if I met some very nice ones who I wanted - didn't want random kids I'd met when drinking at the Bop - and I didn't. I can have kids next year though, and be a sophisticated fourth year mother. None of my housemates have kids - Mary and Clare had them last year (as medics are allowed to have children in second year), and Jack and Dave are only second years (parents are supposed to be penultimate or final year students). Clare is a granny this year though - her medic daughter having found kids - making me a great-aunt. I know, it all sounds very complicated, but it does make sense - if only in St Andrews collective mind - and I'll be able to tell you about any amusing incidents I come across next time.

Now I have to go - last minute work calls. I was meant to read Livy's Rise of Rome last week, but I was too busy relaxing, and I have to have a look at it by 9am tomorrow. Yes I, the arts student, have a 9am class tomorrow. That's what happens when your tutor - practically the Ancient History department's mascot - gets elected Dean of Arts, he has committee meetings in class hour, and shunts them to unholy times of the morning. But I'll be there. Really.

Swiv

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