Journal Entries
Yo-yo Face
Posted Apr 5, 2003
The more important things that are happening, the more extreme my mood gets. The odd thing being that I swing between them so much - I get really really REALLY down - and then suddenly start bouncing around for no particular reason.
It's been hapenning a *lot* recently: 
there was that business with the letter - sending it, waiting with fear, getting the reply - the relief! [sorry if you're not the recipient, it's private; sorry if you *are*, I hope you don't think this is saying too much...]
that day started off really well, but is a typical example of the way things have been going: it was all going really well, revision-wise and so forth, and I decided to reward myself by joining in the house-wise multiplayer gaming action - FOOL! 6AM, I finally persuade myself to go to bed. There went that attempt at getting a decent sleep pattern for the exams...
Then there was the "quick, see if I can do it in 2 hours" shopping trip that lasted more like 4, cost about 30 squids, and left me with severe supermarket-fatigue (and aching shoulders)...
A few days ago was my first exam, and BOY did I get stressed the night(s) before that! The day before, my old computer stopped acting as the household server - in that it stopped acting as anything! That rather took over the day - revision being a very easy thing to put off. But after a decent night's sleep under my newly invented blanket of towels and jumper on top of empty duvet-cover, it wasn't all that bad after all...
The weather took a turn for the worse, but I enjoyed cooking soup and cake, and when the sun came back with a vegeance yesterday I was very much in a positive frame of mind. And it was far too hot to revise indoors, so I went off to revise in the shade of a tree in the "Harris Garden" on campus. But, inevitably, it was windy, distracting, and I got little done, except a bit of shopping. But then I realised the bread I'd just bought had only one day left on it's Use By date! And I spent the evening feeling distinctly worse-for-weather: kind of weather-*blown* (and not all that sleepy, really)...
And today, I was lying in bed when my housemate knocked on my door - do I owe him one or what! He said "nearly exam time", I said "I know", *then* looked at the time, and started swearing... My exam started in less than 3/4s of an hour! Rushed off, panicking (despite what it says on my t-shirt), and although the exam picked up toward the end, I'd be lying in the extreme to say it went well. And yet, this afternoon, I can't bring myself to feel too bad about it - and it's still only 4 O'clock...
...
"It always takes longer, it always costs more, it will always be harder, there will always be more, there will always be less than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."
[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Norman%27s%20Law]
...?
Discuss this Journal entry [7]
Latest reply: Apr 5, 2003
Not sure *what* to think any more...
Posted Mar 24, 2003
Well, I have to say I'm a little confused right now - and not all that happy. In fact, although I normally sleep "like a log", I seem to be becoming a bit of an insomniac at the moment, because I just can't stop trying to get my head round what's going on in the world, and in my particular little part of it.
I really wish I could share my concerns with everyone who comes across this, to talk, and debate, and work out what it is I should be doing - and feeling - right now. But there are two things in particular, and I can't discuss either of them here.
- One of them is something extremely personal, and even if I did think it was OK to discuss it in public, it would take an essay just to explain the history of it all - and who'd actually want to read all that?
- And the other concerns a certain piece of Current Affairs that the BBC, for reasons that I understand but disagree with, have banned us from mentioning here. 
So I guess I'll just have to wait for my letter to arrive on the first one, and find somewhere else to talk about the second...
And that's before we've even mentioned the Part 2 Uni exams, my choice of final year project, where I'm going to live next year, and whether I'll get round to any of the things I actually *want* to do...
So, umm, yeah... that's me: Confused, frustrated, and *absolutely knackered*.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Mar 24, 2003
The best-laid plans of mice and health & safety men...
Posted Mar 20, 2003
Hmm, well, I didn't intend that to take up a whole day... [A1003159]
Nor, of course, did I intend to spend the last hour cleaning the kitchen (and, while I was at it, back room), but a momentary lapse of concentration and : I didn't think it would be possible for one pyrex bowl to expand to cover such a large area of kitchen!
And, although I've never personally felt what it's like to have a small grain of glass stuck into the bottom of my foot, I'm not keen to give myself - or anyone else - the opportunity to find out what it was like,
so I went over the whole floor very thoroughly with the vacuum. I had to have the milk I was warming for cocoa cold and (therefore) cocoa-less, too, while I was in the mood for being careful of health & safety: I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to heat milk more than once...
Of course the world isn't exactly going according to most people's plans right now, or very safely and healthily, but I mustn't talk of that here.
I should be in bed, so I can get up and do some of this 
ing revision tomorrow. But checking the breaking news is sort of an excuse - isn't it? Oh, and out of interest, I notice the US Senate have voted (just about) against drilling for oil in Alaska. 
That's gotta be good for the health & safety of the world... 
What? , alright then.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Mar 20, 2003
The threshold is crossed.
Posted Mar 18, 2003
There have been few times in my life when I have been so moved by events, so overcome with the feeling of being part of history, that all else pales into insignificance; few moments that have moved me to tears, and left me with that everlasting memory that "I was there".
I can think of three such occasions:
September the 11th, 2001: standing, dumbfounded, in my living room at home, watching events unfold on my parents wide-screen TV; and wondering what tremendous consequences this moment would have.
February the 15th, 2003: shuffling through London as part of a crowd the extent of which I could not even comprehend; knowing that I was part of an immense and unignorable body of opinion.
And today, March the 18th, 2003: sitting on the floor of my housemate's bedroom watching in silence a live broadcast from the House of Commons; and being truly humbled by the quality of debate.
The first of these occasions was summed up by one MP as "A bad day for world peace"; this latest, I think, has been a Good Day for Democracy: however the final vote went, that debate renewed my faith in the system that runs this country. For once, it was not a contest between famous faces and major parties, it was about individual politicians making a decision based on their own conciences. And when it came to 10 O'Clock, the only thing I knew for certain, was that I was glad it wasn't me having to make that decision.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Mar 18, 2003
I saw the news today - oh boy!
Posted Mar 17, 2003
A million holes in Bush's argument.
And though the holes were rather large,
He just ignored them all,
And went to war against the will of half the world!
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Mar 17, 2003
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