A missing hour & Emily’s return…
I'm rather confused, and slightly concerned, about what exactly happened to the three hours it took me to get home on Friday. I left college at 15:50 and arrived home at 18:50, which makes a three hour journey, yet when I add up the sections of the journey (eg. walking to the station - 25 mins, first train leg - 50 mins) I can't for the life of me get a total of more than two hours. This is disconcerting. I have to wonder whether perhaps I actually set off at 16:50, or perhaps arrived home at 17:50. Either way, I'm cleary losing my marbles.
My brief sojourn in St Albans is in order to see my sister, who, as I mentioned previously, is back this weekend from 9 months in Tanzania. She was due to land early on Saturday morning, but when her flight out of Tanzania was delayed / cancelled / temporarily misplaced, she missed her connection at Muscat (the capital of Oman) and had to spend a night at a luxury hotel (at the airline's expense). This wasn't too much of a chore, and meant we could meet her at the much more civilised time of 8 o'clock Saturday evening.
I was thinking, and I reckon I've only twice been to meet people at an airport. The most recent time was my brother returning from a school trip to Iceland. (That's right, I said Iceland. I know! In my day Geography field trips were to Dorset, or perhaps, if we were very lucky, the wild and exotic mountains of Wales. Kids these days, eh? Spoiled rotten...) The other time was when I was very young, and we were collecting my grandmother from the airport. It's one of my more traumatic childhood memories, as my sister and I were seperated from our Mum by over-zealous lift doors. They ascended a full 4 floors before finally coaxing the lift back down. We were looked after by a very nice lady, into whose face we proceeded to scream loudly, and for many a year afterwards I was very nervous of lifts.
No such drama today, other than the usual stress that accompanies any family outing. It's not that we can't, as individuals, get ready, but that we never seem to be ready at the same time. It is suprisingly easy, after a couple of minutes waiting, to find that actually, you're not ready at all; that you simply have to go upstairs for some vitally important thing, which strangely seems to have gone to ground in a dark and inaccesible part of the house. We seem to take shifts standing by the door, or perhaps sitting impatiently in the car, until random chance eventually dictates that we coincide, allowing us to finally be on our way. Though somewhat delayed in our departure, we were in plenty of time, even depsite the only traffic jam I've ever seen inside a multi-storey carpark. It was jammed pretty much solid, but fortunately a space opened up right in front of us. The people pulling out could barely move far enough to let us in, but that's not our problem, is it?
To cut a long story short, or at least not much longer than it is already, Emily arrived safe and sound. Looking a little sunburned from her brief and unexpected sightseeing trip round Muscat, but otherwise well. The hardcore anti-malarial drugs she was given seem to have done the trick, and the journey wasn't too arduous, despite the delay. In one way it's very strange having her back, but in another it's already like she never left. Whether this is because, fundamentally, she hasn't changed in her nine months abroad, or whether she has simply slipped rapidly back into being the same Emily she was before she left, I don't know. If she has changed, I suspect it's that she's even more driven, and passionately determined to help the people she got to know. I'm back to Cambridge again tomorrow, so I wont see her for long, but maybe I'll suggest she comes to visit me some time this term.
Back in Cam…
I haven't posted for a while, so I'll do a quick recap of what's been happening. I'm now back in Cambridge, having moved in on Sunday afternoon, and have been getting settled back into college. I'm pleased with my room this year (modern, well-designed room with ensuite), but have to confess to slight pangs of jealousy when I saw some of my friends rooms. The disgracefully meritocratic system at my college determines that obtaining a 1st in end of year exams puts you at the top of the room ballot, enabling you to select one of the wonderful old rooms. Several friends have a massive living room as well as a seperate bedroom, but I'm not bitter. Not even slightly.
The nominal reason for my early return is so that I can 'make use of the library facilities before term starts'. This is partly true, but it's also nice to settle in before term starts properly. As I mentioned previously, this year is going to be one of studious and conscientious study, mixed in carefully determined proportion with wild and hedonistic partying. It's a fine line to tread, but it's there somewhere. I don't need to cut down on the 'extra-curricular activities', I just need to cut out the 'sitting on my arse' that so frequently filled idle hours last year.
The other news, of course, is that my sister flys home this weekend. She's been in Tanzania for the past 9 months teaching on a health education scheme, and is scheduled to land at Heathrow at 06.00 this Saturday. The only minor complication to this plan is that, after almost nine months, and with only a week to go, she's managed to get malaria. For those of you who know about these things, she has grade 2 malaria, but I can't pretend that means very much to me. With proper healthcare (which she does appear to be receiving), she ought to be fine again in no time, and apparently symptoms are like a very bad bout of flu. Still, not pleasant, and not a good way to end her time in Africa.
It has been pointed out to me that my website looks pretty lame at any resolution other than 1024x768. Those of you running at different settings, I apologise. I'm gonna redesign the entire site at some point, but for now you'll have to make do. I really ought not waste time on it at the moment, so it may have to wait until a much later date. When I was designing the site, I did try to do it such that the entire look of the site was fixed by CSS, and would therefore be relatively painless to change, but I got rather sloppy by the end. It may end up being a long, drawn out and protracted nightmare. Don't worry, I shall be sure to whinge massively, thereby passing on a proportion of the unpleasantness to you, my loyal readers.
New pics & hereditary indolence…
I've sorted out the 'Utopia Unlimited' photos now, so feel free to take a look. To be honest, I don't suppose there'll be much of interest to most of you, but there are a few reasonable shots hidden amongst the dross.
Looks like I'm definitely going back to uni this Sunday, which is great. It's amazing quite how much I miss the place, but I guess it is over three months since I was last there. This year wont be as much fun as the last two, however, because I will be working very much harder. It's not an exaggeration to say that my week of exams last year was the most stressful of my life, and there's no way I'm gonna put myself through that again. I was utterly convinced I was going to fail, and while I didn't, I know I can do much better. This year, I'm gonna get off to a good start, and build from there. (I can almost here my friends chuckling at this, shaking their heads as if to say 'poor old Nick, always deluding himself'. Well, your wrong. After all, I've only got to change the habits of a lifetime, right?)
Actually, I fear I'm fighting forces more powerful than habit alone. I am a slacker, born and bred, just as my father before me, and probably his before him. Is there a slacking gene? If so, I am surely a carrier. Are slackers formed purely by environmental factors? Who knows, but as I delight in pointing out to my parents, be it nature or nurture it is still their fault. My brother is similarly afflicted, but while my sister suffered badly in her youth, she seems now to have shaken free from sloth's languid yet obstinate grasp. Perhaps one day I shall be similarly liberated.
Looking back, I can't actually remember a time before lethargy and indolence possesed my very soul. Even my junior school reports, (from ages 7-11), mention my reluctance to finish things. At secondary school, I reached new levels/depths with every passing year, my GCSE projects being a case in point. For my Geography project, I worked for 19 of the 24 hours before it was due in, and technology had me trying to complete two projects in a similar time frame, neither of which ever worked properly. At university, I'm always sprinting desperately towards the lab with barely minutes remaining. (Though I have to say that I'm one of many. Cycling back from the lab last time, I was somewhat gratified to see panicked and fraught faces heading in the opposite direction.)
Anyway, if I'm gonna be a productive and dynamic go-getter tomorrow, I'd better get some sleep. I've got a lot to sort out before heading back to uni, and you should see the state of my room. On second thoughts, if I really thought you ought to see it, I could just take a photo and post it here. In reality, you really, really shouldn't see my room.
Dartmouth, tales of yore and ‘my new toy’…
Dartmouth is a small coastal town in south Devon, which is in the south-west of England, which is a part of Great Britain. Britain is currently in Europe, but it's a little uncertain how long that will continue. Many of the lines tethering us to the rest of the continent have been severed, and preparations seem to be afoot to hoist the sails aloft and plot a course for the Americas.
My family has had ties to Dartmouth for something like 30 years now, ever since my Dad and Grandmother drove over the headland and saw the pretty little port laid out below them. They were looking for a place for my grandparents to retire to, and family folk-lore has it that they turned to one another saying 'this is the place'. Almost immediately everything went soft-focus and tinkly music began to play, for it was love at first sight. The clan had arrived in Dartmouth and, for good or ill, have never left.
Incidentally, this might be an opportune moment to mention the nature of my family's stories and 'tales of yore'. There are many, and like this blog, much contained within is far from reliable gospel truth. They are entertaining, however, in their own special way, and become progressively more so with every retelling. Propogation of such stories is a tradition eagerly adhered to, and the process has surely found no more enthusiastic a participant than my father himself. Many a dinner-time proclamation has begun with "I've probably mentioned this before...", and it has become something of a game to try and finish off the stories for him. I do wonder whether this is the entire aim, however, since he has often remarked that unless the stories are hammered into my generation, they will simply vanish. And what a tragic loss to the world that would be...
It's in Dartmouth that I have been for the last week or so, and it's less than a week till I'm there again. Next week is the 'Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta', with events galore, but I'll tell you more about them at the time. What other news is there for you to catch up on?
I have a new phone. You may remember that my previous phone was, well, useless. It suffered a long, drawn out, tortuous death, and every day I looked forward to seeing just how out of date the messages I received would be. Finally I gave up, and went and got myself a new phone. I haven't yet decided what to do with the carcass of my old phone. I'm thinking some sort of ritual sacrifice, though perhaps trying to exact revenge on an inanimate object is a bit weird.
Now, I'm not sure whether this has come across yet in my blog, but I'm a bit of a gadget freak. I don't own that many, but when I can get my hands on a new piece of kit it's like all my birthdays come at once. I went into the mobile phone shop intending to buy the cheapest phone possible, (attempting to curb my escalating financial crisis), but that's not quite how it panned out. The best laid plans, eh? At least I get to play with my new toy's camera, mp3 player, organiser, email, java games, polyphonic ringtones and video football highlights...
The biggest advantage of 'my new toy' is that, with its email function, I should be able to blog from anywhere in the country! (insert appropriate evil laugh). I haven't tried it yet, and I also don't know whether there is network coverage in the area of Cornwall I'm gonna be in during September, but with any luck you'll be receiving regular updates throughout. I can almost hear you sighing in relief.
Suddenly taurus & the detritus of my life…
Strange. I have gone through my life convinced that I am a 'Virgo', but now it seems I may have been living a lie. I was just editing my blogger profile and they've used my date of birth to calculate that I am, in fact, a Taurus. Is this correct? Am I a bull and not... hold on. I know what's happened here. It's
because the backward folk across the pond put their dates in a funny order. I've put in the 9th of May instead of the 5th of September, which explains the mistake. I'll change it in a moment.
Actually, before I continue, I'll have a bit of a rant about that. What on earth is the thinking behind 'month/day/year'? It seems painfully obvious to me (and, I might add, most of the rest of the world) that logic dictates 'day/month/year'. I can state precedence, Your Honour. Exhibit 14D, the digital clock display. 'Hours/Minutes/Seconds'. Neatly in size order. I feel this American anomaly falls under the same category as persistent resistance to the metric system.
Of course, I don't really give a stuff what star-sign I am, but a quick perusal of my horoscope can provide occasional amusement. For example, according to Paranomality.com, I am..
- helpful and gentle with the helpless (such a good samaritan, me)
- empathetic and sympathetic (well, I don't like to brag)
- humane (Hmmm... I was talking about my 'crisp slowly over hot coals' list yesterday, so perhaps not.)
- health conscious
- charming and witty (this rings particularly true, naturally...)
- affectionate
- dedicated
and also...
- critical of laziness in others (not in myself though...)
- demanding
- untidy (you have no idea, believe me)
- somewhat a hypochondriac (see Of 40 degrees you say?)
- moody
- eccentric
- anxious
It's like they know me, it really is. (Cue barrage of comments from friends confirming second list, most notably third item therein...)
The untidy thing really is quite spectacularly correct. A significant portion of my bedroom floor is currently submerged beneath over a metre of assorted detritus. I'm in the process of moving clothes out of a chest of drawers, a task which I have started with considerable aplomb. I haven't yet decided where they are going next though, or even why they have left the draws at all.
As well as clothing spanning several geological time periods, my floor is populated by myriad items of varying worth dating back to my early childhood. These include, but are not limited to...
- A massive cuddly-toy ladybird (or ladybug for Americans) measuring over a metre in length that I won in a colouring competition at age 5
- A wooden sword, 'Excalibur', used as a prop in a school play over six years ago
- An original iMac, unused since it developed the idiosyncratic habit of wiping its own hard drive with alarming regularity
- A tennis ball with a two foot diameter
- An orange flashing light liberated from roadworks late one night many years ago
- A four foot carboard stand advertising the DVD of 'The Fellowship of the Rings', borrowed from a shop by my sister
My room long ago escalated completely out of control, and I am sure there are parts of my floor that have not seen the light of day since sometime in the late 1980's. One of my earliest memories is starting to tidy this room, and the project is still ongoing. A couple of years ago I started decorating it too, and eighteen months ago the wallpaper was removed. The sight of bare plaster is beginning to grow on me.
Good grief, this post is huge. I'd better stop now, for fear of wasting too much of your precious time. I'm sure you have things you ought to be getting on with. Go and mow the lawn or something.
Sheep, morality and the college student…
BBC NEWS - UK - Crafty sheep conquer cattle grids:
"Hungry sheep on the Yorkshire moors have taught themselves to roll 8ft (3m) across hoof-proof metal cattle grids"
And people call sheep stupid. Guess this shows them, doesn't it? Actually, I have to confess I've never really been an ardent defender of sheep's reputations. Perhaps I am even guilty of thinking them a little slow.
Did you know that pigs are very intelligent? I saw a documentary about that a while ago, and I was so amazed that I proceeded to tell everyone about it. I haven't really stopped, but it's been becoming increasingly difficult to find people who don't know already. I guess it raises tricky questions about inconsistencies in my meat-eating-ness. (I know that's not a word, but it's the only one that fits. English is an evolving language, and this is the cutting-edge...)
I'd feel a little uncomfortable eating a dog, for example, but pigs out perform them in a lot of intelligence tests. Is intelligence the way to judge it though? I mean, I'd hardly feel happier eating a human with a lower IQ, would I? There are many people I wouldn't mind spit-roasting (many, many people), but the demographic of the 'crisp them slowy over hot coals' group probably wouldn't show any significant trend in intelligence. Anyway, I wouldn't plan on eating them afterwards (one has to draw the line somewhere, after all...) That is an interesting question though. Perhaps I will compile a list, and get back to you. I feel a little statistical analysis is in order...(geek)
There's really no reason why I should eat one animal happily, and not another. I guess basically it comes down to social conditioning, cos dogs are eaten as a matter of course in some parts of Asia. In little ol' England though, if I were to slap Mrs Henderson's Pekinese on the barbeque, it would doubtless cause some consternation.
The only thing I really feel justified eating is fish. I reckon that if you can't kill it yourself, then you shouldn't eat it. Which means I probably shouldn't eat meat at all, but I do. Fish, however, I have caught, gutted and cooked entirely myself, start to finish, so that seems a little more justifiable. Is there any logic to that? I suspect not. I'm tired.
My new statistics service tells me that I have two loyal readers (flatmates from last year at uni. Vive le 'Flat 14'!). Cheers guys. I've only had it running for 24 hours though, so maybe there are more of you out there. There was one other visitor, actually, someone from University Of California, Santa Barbara. Hello there! If you come back, leave me a message and please solve the mystery of quite how you came to find this peculiar little backwater of the world wide web.
Of 40 degrees, you say?
If only there were a way of making all you healthy people out there suffer with me, I would be so much happier. Perhaps a moaning and bitter blog post will do the trick? Now if only there were a way to make you all read it...
Have you ever used one of those heat-sensitive-strip thermometers? I tried taking my temperature with one of those today, and it gave me a reading of 40°C, (104°F for those yet to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world). Now, I'm all for the exageration of symptoms to gain extra sympathy, and am not entirely against a little hypochondria now and then, but that did seem a little extreme to me. They may have the advantage of preventing your child getting mercury poisoning when they are at the stage of chewing whatever comes within range, but these strip things are clearly a little over-eager.
You'll all no doubt be overjoyed to hear that I am not on my way out, since a proper thermometer downgraded my status from 'critical', to 'stop moaning'. Still, I'm above the 'standard healthy level', and it's certainly enough to be making me feel more than a little the worse for wear...
Right, I'm going to go to bed, I think. Nothing like a bit of sleep to make you feel better, eh? Or at least to provide a few hours of blissful oblivion in which the urge to vomit does not become overwhelming.
(Put you off your food? Good! (For those of you actually eating at this point, be careful not to pour orange juice on your keyboard. Removing and cleaning each and every key is not fun. Believe me.))
Like a crushed ‘Crunchie’ bar…
Another blogger (WhimsyChick) was talking about her bad back the other day, and I too suffer rather in that department. I feel sure that (even though she can't remember it) she hurt her back doing something heroic and/or poetic, like saving her children from a burning house. Mine is something to be slightly less proud of...
It was about three and a half years ago, after a party, and I was walking with friends to the station to catch a train home. Now, it may not suprise you to hear that I was not entirely compus mentus, and somehow, (we will never know exactly how), I became separated from the group. (One story goes that, with a whoop of joy, I careered off down a sideroad, running headlong toward the horizon. In fact, that's their story. My story is that they brutally, callously and maliciously lost me on purpose. The jury is still out.) After a brief, but fruitless, attempt to find me, they proceeded on to the station without me. I can't entirely blame them.
I was enjoying myself immensely however, and after a brief, but thorough, tour of the Harpenden suburbs, I stumbled into the bright lights of the station. By this point the train was coming round the final corner, pulling into the station, and I was on the wrong platform. With lightning fast reactions, I looked at the train, looked at my friends on the other platform, looked at the train again and looked at my friends again. Eventually the penny dropped and I registered their yelled instructions.
I sprinted up the steps and onto the bridge, cheers of encouragement and sneers of derision from my peers ringing in my ears. I made quick time, and was soon clattering down the steps onto the correct platform. However, it was at this point that I managed to hit the very edge of a step as I ran. You know those old Road Runner cartoons? Remember how Wiley Coyote would react when he ran onto banana skins? Well, I can exclusively reveal to you that it really can look like that.
I swear my ankles were actually higher than my head for a significant portion of the flight. This graceful, almost beautiful, spectacle did not end well however. The first part of me to make re-entry was my back, or more specifically a very localised region of my spine. As a result of this (now almost amusing) episode, I am the proud owner of a wedge shaped vertebra. (That's the only relevance of the title. It's how the injury was decsribed to me. Nicely vivid image, don't you think? Pleasant to ponder on...)
PS I caught the train. With a quite stunning grasp of First Aid and the treatment of spinal injuries, my friends executed a quick 'grab and drag', hauling me down the steps and onto the train. Er, cheers guys...