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

Sometimes, bits of my life are so different, it's like they're completely different lives. And every now and then, I have to cross from one to another, and everything feels strange and foreign. It's one of the reasons I like walking: if I take time to get from one place to another, my mind can take the time to get from one part of me to another.

A few weeks ago, I was extremely stressed about my exams - and for a while thought I was doomed to failure. But I didn't give up, and in the end I think I probably "got away with it" - although I daren't be sure till the results come out. And as soon as I finished, it was like walking from a prison cell to a prairie: before, every little thing bothered me; after, nothing seemed to matter. I knew it couldn't last, that there really were things I'd have to sort out, but that didn't matter either.

And I spent those next couple of days travelling, in my mind - I relaxed here in Reading, and got ready to relax back in Eastbourne, too. And I spent a week, just on holiday from everything, pretty much without a care in the world. And boy, I'd been needing that holiday!

And then yesterday, I made the journey back again - physically and mentally. I was in rather a hurry all evening before I caught the train, and had time for only rushed goodbyes - suddenly, time mattered again, I had things to do, places to be. And so I spent almost 3 hours on trains, leaving behind the holiday, and heading toward a new term, and new challenges.

Not that I was alone for the whole journey, oddly: an old friend of mine, from secondary school, ended up on the same train as me. He was having a rather unsatisfactory time, in that he'd just lost his wallet - and the people he was supposed to be with - at Gatwick Airport. But it was weird enough for me just to see him at all: I bumped into him, and also into another friend who I knew better but have seen even less recently, while I was going to and fro in Eastbourne. The whole experience of seeing such old friends always throws me, somehow...

I arrived at Earley station [yes, very funny...] around 8:30PM, I guess. Dark, anyway, and the smell of recent rain gave the air a cold, damp feel, which I couldn't decide whether was pleasant or not. I had no idea whether anyone would be at my student house when I arrived, so I let myself in and called out hello into the empty silence. I was in fact the first one back, and had to work out how to turn the gas on (in the dark under the stairs) and relight the boiler.

Of course, we'd all used up our food before we left, and I couldn't have carried anything on the train, so there was absolutely nothing to eat in the house. But I'd expected that, and went hungrily down the road and bought a takeaway pizza, along with some milk and a banana so I could steal somebody's leftover cornflakes in the morning. I plugged the clean, empty fridge back in, ate my fill, and went up to listen to John Peel while I unpacked.

After a night of intense dreams, I got up slowly in the strange empty house. My most urgent task was to acquire some food, "lunch" and dinner. I had planned to stock up on heavy, long-lasting things from an internet supermarket, but never having used one before it hadn't occurred to me that the earliest they were likely to deliver would be tomorrow. And what I really had no idea of, is that you generally have to book a "delivery slot", and since this can be done in advance, there may not be one for a few days! Well, I managed in the end, running up a scary £50 bill including 3 litres of olive oil (which I plan on selling to housemates), 18 litres of orange juice, a kilo of pasta, a kilo of rice, half a kilo of noodles... you get the idea!

To my mild surprise, one of my housemates turned up this afternoon - unsure whether he was here to stay or just for a few hours, since his parents only live a few miles away anyway. I started chatting away to him, relieved to have some real human contact again, but I think he had things he was trying to get on with. He's gone out for the evening now - in fact he'll probably reel in drunk before all that long. I decided I felt more like getting on with bits and pieces of "being organised".

I started by buying some fruit and veg from a "local shop", so that I could actually make some semblance of dinner with the cous cous I've got in my cupboard. The delivery won't come till 4-6PM tomorrow, so I've got to make do with bits and pieces and not get up too early and get too hungry!

The next big task I set myself was constructing a timetable for this term from the three departments I'm studying under. After half an hour cursing Psychology for still not publishing one (I mean, what do they think we're gonna do, go in at 9AM just in case!?), I got out the list of options I've chosen and found that I don't actually *have* any Psychology this term. In fact, I've only actually got two modules this term, plus whatever project I end up doing.

The project thing is really quite hopeless: I get to choose between Psychology (whose deadline passed long ago), Computer Science (who haven't even announced the details yet) and Cybernetics (whose deadline is, stupidly, this Wibble!). Talking to my housemate, I realised that this leaves anyone sensible enough to concentrate on their exams before the holiday only two days to work out what they're going to spend the next year working on - for about 1/3 of their degree mark! As for CS, I chanced a glance at their website, and found that this year's project list is in fact available - and the file seems to have been there a couple of days already! No details about the process involved in general yet, but you'd think they'd have e-mailed me to let me ponder the "Staff Proposals", wouldn't you?

Later on, I spent an hour talking to Lifson about the inevitable decline - and forthcoming death - of her grandad. [see her journal: F79289?thread=270040] In some ways, I know all too well how she must be feeling, since my gran's been slowly slipping away for a couple of years now. And in some ways, I still struggle with what to think & do about it...

An e-mail from an old friend held more hope, but just as much confusion - and I am equally at a loss for what advice to give him.

And to add one more bizarreness, the mum of one of my housemates rang up in an attempt to contact him because she was receiving text messages but couldn't read them. So I had to get my mobile and read off a number from its memory - not complicated, I know, but it all kind of adds to the weirdness of my day.

I'm not feeling very sleepy, although its late - I guess I could get on with one of the many things that I've got to get on with: forms, decisions, sortings. I think I'll leave playing with my "new" 5&1/4 inch disc drive till another day - I want to see if I can get it to read my brothers' old BBC micro disks before they decay beyond rescue...

Oh, and as well as over-complex finances, a dodgy freezer, and leaking ceilings, there have apparently now been sightings of a rodent in the house. Oh, goody!