Monday 30 June 2008

Kinda hard to believe it's all over now. CrazyGuy and IndieKid are both gone. The flat is clean. I'm just waiting to leave. I've got my results, although they're both still waiting on there's.

I want to keep this going - need to put all my randomly collated advice somewhere. And odds and ends about looking for a professional house. And jobs. And life after... Applying for PhDs... Lots of stuff really.

Ho hum.

Feeling abandoned yet?

My lack of posting isn't due to a lack of life, it's mainly down to my computer being at my parents' house, and me uh not... I'm leaving the country on Wednesday (but will be back!) and all my stuff has gone home without me. Irritatingly my last, quite thoughtful, post appears to have disappeared! :O

So I guess I'll start with a rehashed version of that:

So the pass list is public? You mean anyone could see my degree result? But what if I did badly due to health problems?

Somewhere in the realms of student forums, a worried finalist panicked about her results. The response was candid:
Nobody's ever going to refer to you as BA Hons Lower Second Class: but her cat died on the day of her first exam.

It seems obvious - but I've begun wondering whether I don't do something very similar in the "real", non academic world. I talk about my past. A lot. My very twisted and messed up past. You may have noticed this. I had lunch with Ex about 10 days ago and had this pointed out to me. A big part of my personality involves talking about everything that came before now: the things that make me me.

But isn't it a similar kind of thing? I'm trying to justify who I am, by the circumstances that have caused it. If I'm messed up, I'm messed up. No matter what. It may help someone to know how to handle it if they know why I'm like this - but I still am. No excuses, no hiding. I'm off track, and it if hurts my relationships or my work... well knowing about the past doesn't really help does it?

Something to ponder...

Tuesday 24 June 2008

Bloody Radio 1

To pass the monotonous hours while working we have the radio on, and because commerical radio gets so annoying with the adverts after the first hour or so (I don't really mind when in the car, but for an 8 hour stint it would be crucifying) and because we're young, we listen to Radio 1. To begin with I just found it a bit weird not knowing what's in the charts at the moment, although I quickly picked it up because (apart from 2 days - yesterday, and the Monday after Download Festival finished) they only play what's in the charts.

Anyway Chris Moyles really annoys me, but he's only on for the first hour of work so we kinda cope with it. But as of yesterday the whole bloody thing annoys me. For two reasons:
  1. Despite having a separate celebrity news slot in which they could discuss this at their leisure "Amy Winehouse has a tiny bit of emphysema because she smoked too much crack" took headline billing throughout the day over the top of say "Opposition withdraw from Zimbabwean elections" or "Bodies of British troops killed in Afghanistan flown home". It's ridiculous!
  2. The only mention of the three men killed in Afghanistan was when they said that the ceremony for Cpl Sarah Bryant was small, because the three men killed with her had been in special service, and they didn't want the men who carried their coffins to be identified. Jeez how must their families be feeling?
How bloody stupid are they?! This is the BBC - meant to be the heart of moderation and good sense in British Broadcasting. And they think that it will make sufficient difference to their listener stats to be Amy Winehouse top billing.... Man alive.... It scares me that they could be right :-S

Sunday 22 June 2008

"He lets you win pool. In front of his mates."

While staying at my best mate's last week, and while in that lazy just-got-out-of-the-shower-nobody's-at-home-cos-he's-at-work kinda place I started reading a rather tatty water stained magazine that his girlfriend must have left on the floor. Well... flicking through anyway. One of the articles was something like 30 ways to tell he secretly loves you - or similar bollocks. Said reasons included things like
  • Letting a girl win a game of pool
  • Letting her have the remote for one whole evening
  • Wearing a flowery shirt she's given you

Now, call me crazy here, but none of those things smack to me of barely-suppressed ardor. What kind of couple actually care who wins pool (other than in a desperately wanting to beat each other kind of way). And whose mates would actually care if his girlfriend beat him? Most guys I know think it's ace if a girl can play pool - mixed doubles for the win!

Similarly, I don't know about you, but when me and OtherHalf watch the TV it tends to go along the lines of

"Fancy watching the telly?" "Sure what's on?" "Uh.... University Challenge or Midsummer Murders." "Yeah, stick university challenge on then."

Or

"Hey House is on - fancy watching it?" *nod nod*

There are few cases when we don't want to watch the same thing and we generally compromise. I can see the issue here if for instance sports are involved (but then who invites their girlfriend over when the footblal is on?! - and if she's there because she lives there then it's a little worrying if she doesn't already know he "loves" her - especially since the article doesn't seem to be talking about gonna get married and last forever love, but general "I fancy keeping you for a few years" love.) or if a girl wants to watch something... girly... I dunno - sex and the city or something. But if you're relationship is reduced to watching mindless telly that only one of you wants to see, then I don't reckon there's so much love happening anyway...

And as for the flowery shirt. Firstly, who the hell buys their man a flowery shirt. It's not the 80s, and if we assume that women have more taste than men (generally true) then it seems unlikely it'll happen. Most guys really don't care that much, and would probably wear the damn thing at least once or twice just to keep her smiling. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Get the feeling I'm displacing anxiety?

Friday 20 June 2008

What just happened?

I have a first class degree. In a subject I love. In a subject I'm good at. In a subject I'd happily research for the next big bit of my life. So why the hell are my dreams suddenly collapsing around me?

I made the mistake about being impatient about my ever-absent tutor, and everybody else having their results and just wangled my way to getting them before he got back. Except now I know, and what I know is that they're completely different to how I expected and they're wrong in all the wrong ways.

In the best ways:
  • I got 50/50 1sts and IIis
  • The moderated-up 2nd year paper has changed by a bigger margin than the moderated down (+4.5 vs -2) so my 2nd year average is now 77.2
  • The first horrible exam apparently got moderated so now I've got a 67 - not bad going eh?

Then there's the "should be amazing news, but isn't because of what other people have said"

  • My viva got a 78 (would be incredible if they hadn't given me someone else's - a good friend's - results at the same time, and I didn't know she had got 87% - despite knowing that mine was clearer, and better written... she's just good at the arrogant confidence thing and I guess the research was better)
  • My extended essay got a 73 (would have been awesome 10 days ago, but thanks to what my tutor said now I feel disapponted - with a 73?!)

The slightly disappointing news: My other finals got 67 67 69 78. The 78 is amazing although in completely the wrong module, but I'm a bit disappointed that both of my essay papers got 67s.

And the soul crushing awful news? My dissertation got a 63. Exactly what I predicted. The only one I accurately predicted. Which sounds fine... one module... not what I want to research... Til you realise that to get a PhD you get viva'd on your research project. And the uni send them your transcript. So not only will they know that I barely scraped a IIi on it - they'll be able to see for themselves and tell me how shit it is. Even if I still had a hope in hell I know full well I'd fall apart as soon as they started to tear it up.

Can't believe I'd screwed this up. Wish I'd waited for Dr T to get back so he could reassure me that all my dreams aren't over. Such an idiot.

Monday 16 June 2008

Bike rage

This is kind of an odd time to be writing about this since, for the first time in weeks, I've got home with no road rage (bike rage!) at all, but just recently I've found myself getting disproportionately massively angry about everything. I've been hoping that this is down to a sort of adrenaline-building-up-to-results type thing, as it seems to have got worse not better since finals and I really can't cope.

I think I've considered blogging about my bike rage many times, but never actually got around to it so here's the summary.
  • I get roughly equally annoyed at pedestrians, drivers and other cyclists, although recently it swings against pedestrians.
  • One of the roads I have to go down is completley, unavoidably not pedestrianised and yet people choose to walk in the centre of the road rather than the perfectly servicable footpaths or even say the edges of the road.
  • This is exacerbated recently by my bell breaking.
  • I get irritated at people crossing roads without so much as looking - seriously, at 20mph I am more than capable of breaking both of our bones. Would you like to tell me what you plan to do if a car turns down this road?
  • I get annoyed at drivers who open their door into the cycle lane
  • I get annoyed at drivers who think the cycle lane is for overtaking people waiting to turn right
  • I get annoyed at bus drivers who edge into the cycle lane and then swing their backs in
  • I get annoyed at stupid cyclists doing ridiculous things who give us all bad names

I've always been slightly annoyed. I utter things like moron or idiot under my breath. But nowadays I fume. It's kinda scary actually. Seems to be gradually subsiding at last though!

So...

Well I still don't know about the results for individual papers, although those are due out hopefully by the end of the week. I'm still walking on air a bit really... it's just this big fat dream come true :)

It was kinda nice in a weird way to find my neroticism helping out one of my friends today. Mathmo had her first set of exams, which apparently went horrifically. When she initially told me how many questions she'd answered (on a paper where you do everything) it sounded quite bad too, although I'm less worried now I've sussed that she wrote odds and ends for parts of other questions. But still - after my first (horrific, awful, life destroying) exam I worked out that the difference between getting a 70 on that paper and a 30 (i.e. a pass) when the paper was worth 10% equated to a 4% difference in my degree class. I pointed this out to her today and after a good 30 mins of various people trying to console her that was the point where she finally stopped violently shaking. It's ok hun, if you were on for a 1st before, then right now you've got a 66... You're not gonna get a 2:2, and you are still going to be employable.

It's a little weird just how overprotective of her I felt. I've been saying that the biggest reason I wanted a 1st was because otherwise I'd hold this silent eternal grudge against her for stopping me working. But on the night after my results came in I had a big angry rant at OtherHalf about her, in which I'll admit some of my language was fairly blue. I still don't understand how someone who's meant to be my friend could fuck me over like that.

But when the chips were down... didn't care anymore. Just wanted to make sure she was better. Friendship is a funny thing...

Saturday 14 June 2008

RESULTS!!

I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!! I got a first!!

Still completely walking on air... will give a full recount later... individual paper marks, my overall mark and my rank in the year not out til next week, though.

(Record number of 1sts this year so don't hate me too much!!)

I'M SO PROUD OF ME!!!! :-D

Friday 13 June 2008

Apparently the results might not be released today. How can they not know?!?!!?!?!??! Am still on tenterhooks....

Gah

I was all fine. I was all happy. I knew I was going to get a 2:1.

And then my tutor, who had to mark the same essay I submitted as a piece of coursework because I'd entered it for a prize, told me that he'd marked it at a 79. A WTF?! Yeah, a 79. Firstly, this is 10% higher than my best case scenario guess - meaning that potentially I'm now capable of 71.2 not 70.2. Additionally it means that my judgement is completely flawed.

Now I don't know what I'm getting. Now I'm hoping again. Fantasising even.

This is not healthy!

Thursday 12 June 2008

A brief update

Apologies for the radio silence - since I got back I've been doing this work I talked about, and rehearsing, and playing in concerts and socialising... Seeing as I don't have internet access where I work (yes, I have an afternoon off) I'm only checking my email once a day - for me this is immense.

Anyhoo... much to write about but very little time, so it will come in installments. However, the department have said that they hope to release our results tomorrow. So watch this space for the incoming 2:1

In other news the weather today (and the last couple of days, but mainly today) has been weird. As I was cycling to work I came through the city, and there's this big gothic church. Behind me was broad sunshine, but I was cycling west into the big grey and purple thunder clouds. The effect was that the church was lit up in the front, but backed by swirling dark mist. It was quite epic - no artist would dare to paint that and call it realistic.

Anyway, as mentioned, installments to come!

Friday 6 June 2008

Feeling like Eeyore

I hate being stuck at home on a Friday night. Home home I mean. Uni home isn't so bad.

Everybody else is out. Everybody still at uni. Everybody who's parents didn't move to the middle of the countryside where they know nobody. Everyone is celebrating or partying. And I'm stuck here. Alone.

Can't stand music practice anymore. I've got so bad I just can't face it. Shame with a concert on Tuesday. No more letters to write. No more housework to do. Barely 30 pages of my last book left. Nobody to call - they're all out. Nothing on TV to watch. Too dark now to go walking. Nothing left to do on the internet. Just feel like a bit of a loser really, nothing but me and my computer.

The really pathetic thing is that I'm not having any real emotion: just boredom and lethargy and frustrating. Nothing worth writing about. Back when I was bitter and twisted and angry and self-loathing and I had soul then I could write. I wrote dark, twisty, horrible things that yanked on the heart strings and called out to people. Things that still call out to me now. Now I'm nice and sensible and I only feel that way when I'm drunk - too drunk to play the guitar really. I write about sadness and it has no soul in it; I write about love and it sounds cheesy. So now I don't write. One of my biggest joys and I sacrificed it with some pills for the sake of being normal. Maybe if and when things end with OtherHalf I'll come off the pills and get my soul back. Drink a bit, cut a bit, get a little messed up and write things to make the blood run cold.

Not long til results now. Less than 10 days. Feel a little sick. It's stupid. We all know I fucked up, we all know I didn't fuck up so bad I won't get a 2:1. All that's left is a matter of pride, and they don't even release the exact marks for 2 weeks - just the initial class list. Still makes me sweat a little to think about it.

I'm going mad here. Can't stand to be at "home". It's not my home, it's never been home. It's suffocating. Just a few more days. A few more days and I can go back to uni.

Thursday 5 June 2008

Fat-Bottomed Girls

So I'm standing in WHSmith and they have racks of magazines, birthday cards and so on as you go round the labyrinth to get to the checkout, presumably with the idea that you might say Oh yes, half price Haribo, THAT'S what I came into the stationery store for! Anyway I happened to glance at the girly magazines to pass the time and there were two making a point about certain very skinny celebs. One of them was running a story on Girls Aloud, and the other had one of the same photos plus photos of somebody else, I forget who. Anyway they're really laying into these (admittedly unhealthily looking-) skinny girls and I'm just thinking about the whole teenage girl psyche of must-lose-weight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that we all have our body hangups - regardless of age, or gender, or actual physical appearance. We'd all like to be a bit thinner, a bit better toned and so on. But it does tend to be the teenage girl and young woman demographic who not only want to be slimmer, but want to be unnaturally slim. I find this especially odd seeing as I don't know any men who support the stereotype. I suppose the age at which it begins is one where girls are less likely to have platonic male friends, or even male friends that they fancy who are sufficiently willing to make comments about not liking uber-skinny girls.

However, as I moved around the queue-snake I saw another magazine. One which made a big deal about so-and-so has lost a stone and a half; and look at this great new diet; and you could lose a stone by summer... For all the effort that the world is going to to try and undo the media's effect so far, I really wish that a minority of magazines and programmes wouldn't continue to mess with girls' heads.

*Clench*

People on the tube irritate me so much. Trains irritate me so much!

I'll admit there's a sweet nostalgia in the cross-London dash. It reminds me of sixth form when Phil and I would regularly go on our barrier-jumping way (often because we could rather than anything ticket-related) with suitcases full of food from our parents on the other side of the city - who apparently, having fairly well deserted us and left us to our own devices to do A-levels were more willing to give us something tangible than the money to buy it ourselves. Slightly ironic seeing as neither of us did drugs, he didn't drink and I barely did; and had we had the money to ourselves it would have gone a dang sight further!

But nostalgia aside, people on the tube really get under my skin. People who get on to the Circle Line at Paddington (for those not in the know, even in non-rush hour this means the train will get very full having been previously empty) and decide that - due to politeness or fear or whatever other excuse - that they will refuse to sit in adjacent seats to those already seated. Now this seems quite reasonable until you realise that:

* Those people who get onto the train first are those who are relatively mobile
* Those people who get on later are more likely to be those with big bags who actually want to sit down.
* That by leaving the only available seats as those between lots of people it means the only way to get a seat is to fight through them and annoy them all immensely.

What possibly annoys me slightly more is that people will then stand in the gaps between those seats and still not sit in them - both "wasting" seats as it were, and making anyone who's not feeling incredibly rude unable to get to the empty seat and sit in it.

I also get irritated at young teenagers, and young trying-to-look-pathetic women, who want the world to know that they are just unable to stay upright on a tube. It's not hard honey, bend your knees. Quite soon after I started making a weekly or biweekly trip across the capital I learned the art of staying upright, not only without looking like an idiot, but without having anything to hold onto at all. Unless the train brakes hard bending your knees and swaying is enough to keep your centre of balance - and if he does brake hard then a whole bunch of other people will go flying far worse because they're all so relaxed thinking that one hand on a rail is enough to keep them upright.

As for trains, it annoys me that you can run for a train only to find that 16 carriages have come in, but only 8 are leaving - i.e. that you need to run (still with the huge huge bag) to the other end of the platform. Thankfully this time, I made it. Then you find that the train is rammed - until that is you've fought your way through the first 3 carriages of rammed-ness only to find that after that the train is quite empty. Seriously, why would anyone who hasn't just run for the train not just move up the train to begin with!? Madness

Enough ranting for now...

Tuesday 3 June 2008

When it rains it pours

Strange how hard it rains now

Rows and rows of big dark clouds

But I'm still alive underneath this shroud

Rain.

I'm busy packing to go home for a few days - which may either mean lots of updates or few depending upon how dire things are back there...

And then...?

I'm sat in my departmental library, having just handed back some old textbooks. There are all these books here that I haven't read... all these books that I never will. The future seems a bit empty without the chance to learn any more.

I had this great plan that after finals I'd actually do some decent (academic) reading for pleasure - just read all the interesting stuff I never had time to. Except then there were bills and someone offered me vaguely-academic work that will give me some cash for socialising, and some extra CV points, and has the advantage of being over 10km away so I'll cycle far enough doing that to not need to go to the gym (misplaced card, so this is definitely a good thing).

I hope to come back here. I really do. The plan was a year out and then back. But that was really resting on me getting a 1st. I'll get a 2:1, and there's still enough funding for my subject to do further study somewhere. But probably not here.

Just makes me think about all the afternoons I lay on my bed doing nothing, or hung out in the common room. All the essays I rushed. All the papers I just skim-read. If I had my time again would I do it differently? Or would I fall into the same traps? Do all finalists feel like this?

Monday 2 June 2008

The best kind of rain

I was stood outside the department, texting OtherHalf.


The first raindrop hit my screen and I looked up. Shrugged. Kept writing.


Another drop. Another.


Big fat drops that were almost warm on the skin. Didn't make you squint. Made you so wet.


But so soft, so warm, so fat.


I could sit in rain like that for hours and never mind.

Coming out

The problem with nights that you know will turn into late drunken nights, but that you don't want to have, is that they tend to turn into late, mellow, contemplative nights instead. Which are nice, but still of little use if you're ill and have to be up early.

Since finishing finals I've had at least 5 "nights out" - 6 if you count last night. So my fluey disgusting bug is no better than before.

On Friday I was out with my coursemates - well that was the theory anyway. Actually it turned into dinner with 1 of my coursemates who's a good friend (Doc), 2 of my coursemates who I barely know and then general mellowness following with a few more of the previously absent coursemates who had numerously fallen asleep, had late trains, been invited elsewhere etc and the first coursemates flatmates.

One of my friends (Worrier) is seriously underdeveloped emotionally (and bear in mind this is 1. coming from me of all people and 2. coming from somebody that knows as many messed up people as I do). You know the stereotype: girls school, never met any boys, doesn't know how to flirt or how to kiss or that women can enjoy sex (none of these obviously are major emotional lacks, but they're all linked together). She's always been a worrier. She's always had low self esteem. But it's never been so apparent as that night quite the extent that this is to.

A lot of her complete lack of self worth (and I do mean complete - it's bizarre once you realise it) seems to stem from not only having never had a boyfriend, but having never had the feeling of wanting one. She's convinced that anybody who wants her must be not worth having, but she's also apparently never had a crush; never really wanted somebody to want her back. She's fancied people in films but that's as far as it goes.

She's also excessively tactile (again, this comes from me, so bear in mind how extreme a statement it is). I've seen that many times: mainly from friends who fit another stereotype, this time the parents-divorced-at-10-lived-with-my-dad stereotype of those who have been deprived of affection and at the first opportunity go overboard: they want to be touched, hugged, loved at every possibly moment. In Worrier's case this is exclusively directed at women, and passes the boundaries of just-good-friends quite a lot of the time: stroking knees, playing with hair...

This all seems a bit tenuous but more and more over the last couple of weeks Doc and I have agreed. We're becoming pretty certain that Worrier is actually a lesbian and hasn't realised it yet.

There are other options obviously, including the rather extreme example of asexuality, which I'll admit to knowing little about. But seeing as we both independently reached the same conclusion, it seems like a possibility.