h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I guess it’s been a little while since I last wrote an entry. Partly I’ve been pretty busy and it’s been difficult to find the time, but also I’ve been a bit down in the dumps lately and haven’t felt much like writing. Anyway, I’m feeling a little more cheerful this week (more on all that later) and quite a lot has been going on the last couple of weeks so I suppose it’s about time I caught up.

The weekend before last my girlfriend was away for a couple of days so I had a fairly quiet weekend. Most of my time was usefully employed lazing around, but on Saturday evening I cycled over to Bristol to Flammable Flower’s house with some of the guys from University for dinner. We had fondue, which was rather lovely, and quite a lot of wine and finished with a whiskey before the adventurous ride back to Bath in the dark.

Last week was extremely busy. I think the last time I wrote I resolved to go to some of the movies in the Bath Film Festival. Well I think the festival finishes this week and so far, I’ve managed to see just one film from the festival programme, but at least that’s one better than last year. On Monday last week my girlfriend and I went to see Sophie Scholl, a movie about White Rose, an anti-Nazi movement which was active in Germany towards the end of the Second World War. Sophie and her brother Hans are arrested for distributing propaganda leaflets on a University campus. The film depicts their interrogation by the police and is reconstructed from records which have recently come to light. Perhaps because of this, there is a powerful feeling of authenticity throughout the movie. It was hard work at times and kicks you in the guts at the end, but it was definitely worth a watch.

The following Wednesday I went out for a curry and drinks with the guys in my research group. We’ve got a couple of new PhD students who just started this month and four final year MChem students who will be working in our labs this year so we thought it would be nice to welcome everyone to the group properly. I hadn’t been feeling particularly well so I didn’t drink too much and went home early, but from what I heard the next day I left just as things started to get messy. Thankfully I don’t really have the time to go into details, but suffice to say that the photos I saw the following day have scarred me for life.

Another reason for leaving early on Wednesday was that I had a job interview as GSK to go to on Friday; consequently I had to get a train to Tonbridge on Thursday night and needed to pack. I spent most of the day on Thursday reading and preparing myself for the interview then caught the train after work. In my haste to pack on Wednesday night I forgot to bring my passport with me, apparently they need it to make sure I’m eligible for work in the UK, so I had a last minute scramble home to grab it and I was half an hour late getting to the hotel.

The job interview was the main reason I’ve been depressed lately. I don’t really want a job, but I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that sooner or later I’m going to have to get one. I wasn’t feeling at all confident about the interview and wasn’t really looking forward to it. I don’t really know what to say about the interview itself. It took up most of the day, but was divided up into manageable “bite-sized” chunks. Some of those chunks went well, others not so well. It’s always difficult to tell how well these things have gone because you don’t know how the other candidates measure up. I think I got on well with the people interviewing me and for what it’s worth I think I’d enjoy the job should they choose to offer it to me. But anyway, it was a worthwhile day because it wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be and I managed to assuage the mounting terror I have been cultivating regarding jobs and interviews and such and now I’m feeling ever so slightly more positive about the whole thing.

From what I saw of it, Tonbridge seemed nice enough, there’s a scattering of farms and oast houses, sort of like grain silos where they used to dry hops (in fact the reception of the hotel where I stayed used to be one), and plenty of countryside. The actual site was a little strange as I think it’s in the middle of being overhauled. The building where I was interviewed was almost brand new, but right next door to it was an almost derelict building which looked like it dated back to the 60s.

After the interview I made my way back to Bath and had a nice dinner with my girlfriend and then we went to the cinema for a late showing of Batman Begins. I’d been meaning to see it for a while, but hadn’t got around to it so when I saw they were showing it again at The Little Theatre I leapt at the chance. It was an entertaining enough movie and after a stressful day of interviews it was nice to go and see a frivolous film that I didn’t have to concentrate on too much.

On Saturday I had a much needed lie in, ate breakfast in bed and did some shopping in the afternoon, then we went out for dinner with a guy from the chemistry department and his wife who are leaving Bath for good to move up north. We went to a little Italian restaurant which was quite lovely, a friendly atmosphere and pretty decent food for a reasonable price.

I took it fairly easy on Saturday night because I was still suffering with a cold and because I was competing in a 10K race on Sunday morning. There’s a series of 10K races on campus organised by Team Bath (basically the sports union at the University, but with a much bigger ego) which started on Sunday. It’s billed as a flat, fast course and, since the series is sponsored by the local running shop, the prizes are extraordinarily generous. All this meant that a very strong field turned up and it was good to be racing with people of that standard, but I have to say I found the course, though certainly flat, was somewhat uninspiring. It was a three-lap route which consisted mostly of switchbacks and loops around the car parks on campus. Parts of it were badly marked (spray painted arrows on tarmac are often difficult to see until you’re right on top of them), some of the marshals were overworked (one guy had to direct runners in both directions and try to handle traffic as well) and a few little touches like distance markers and a drinks station at the finish would have been welcome.

I’m hoping that some of these teething troubles can be fixed for the second race next month because I will almost definitely be running again. In the end I finished 5th (there was about fifty runners, but like I said it was a very strong field), but I was really pleased with my time of 33:57 which beat my personal best by more than a minute. Almost certainly this is more to do with the course and isn’t a reflection of my improvement at this distance over the last month, if anything I think I was in poorer shape on Sunday (partly because I was ill) than when I ran Corsham 10K at the end of September. It will be interesting to run again next month (hopefully free from illness) and see if I can improve again.

After the race, my girlfriend and I had a quiet afternoon and then went to the cinema once again. This time we saw Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit, another easy going film that I didn’t have to concentrate on overmuch. I quite liked the feature length movie, but I think I prefer the short films that preceded it; the story seemed just a little bit drawn out when compared with the fast paced capers produced by Aardman Animations in the past. The quality of animation is up to their usual high standards, seeing it on a big screen for the first time you notice more of the details (like finger prints on some of the models), but that just adds to the charm of the whole thing.

So far this week has been pretty quiet. I’ve been trying to shake off the last remnants of that cold with a couple of hard sessions at the gym, and I think I’m on the mend now. Tonight I’m looking forward to a less physically exhausting evening because my girlfriend and I are going to see The Spanish Harlem Orchestra at Colston Hall in Bristol. I don’t know much about the SHO, but apparently they’re a bit like New York’s version of the Buena Vista Social Club so I’m hoping for a good night.

Right well this has turned out to be quite an epic entry and I have to get on with things so I guess that had better do for now.