Finalist's Blog

2008-07-09T14:02:00.001-07:00

Hmmm I'm beginning to think the few no-location weird IP addresses that keep coming back are bots... that's a shame.

Anyway, I'm still getting pretty worried about how unbelievably angry I keep getting, although I'm not sure this week did much to help. I mean... well there's was the time when I finally managed to catch up with my friends, as opposed to the people I was rooming with, and mentioned more than a couple of times how awful it was being stuck with people who clearly didn't want me around, only to find that right after our next mass they disappeared off without me. I wouldn't have minded so much if Wino had offered so much as an apology when I saw them back at the hotel later that night, but instead I just got told that she'd texted me from the metro when they "realised" I wasn't there (NB that my phone had no signal the whole time we were in France and she knew this) and that I was over reacting. Cue anger.

Then there was the time I got put on an escalator at a metro station, which promptly turned out to be the wrong one. By the time I got to the top and back down again they'd left. So I was alone. In a big station. Trying to find my way back to England. In a country where I speak literally none of the language. And yet again this was just "not a big deal". I mean man alive am I just subhuman or are my friends really just a bunch of little shits?

I'm sick of being this twisted up, angry, ranty little person. This was never me. Always the organiser, always the comforter, always dying a little inside but never this angry. I think my 'Academic New Years' resolution is going to be to bottle this more. If I carry on this way I'll never have any friends at all. Although maybe that's a good thing - maybe I need to learn to just be me and suck it up. I'm sick of waiting to be validated by other people.

Back and angry

2008-07-09T10:31:00.000-07:00

Well I'm back in the country. Feeling all the usual post-tour things. Except this year there's no need to look for a new choir because uh oh yeah I'm leaving.

Plenty to rile me up back here anyway. Not least of all the stupid stupid decision of the C of E to ordain women bishops without making any provision at all for the huge part of the church that believes this is not just misguided but wrong. I'll rant about this in full another time, but to put this in perspective 30 years ago there weren't so much as women deacons, yet alone priests. In 30 years 2000 years of tradition has been overturned - bit odd isn't it.

In typical OtherHalf style I've heard nothing, despite having been gone for 8 days but I'm kinda past the point where that worries me right now - odd, seeing as I screwed up my meds while I was away.

But anyway, full discussion of bishops, my time away, and the world in general to come shortly.

:O

2008-07-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

I know my flatmate's results.
And I know he doesn't want to be told.
But I also know he wants to know.
But he's not here, and they'll take days to appear on line.
Oh man...

Everybody! IndieKid got a 2:1 in English!

2008-06-30T14:40:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-06-30T14:03:00.001-07:00

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...

Bloody Radio 1

2008-06-24T00:45:00.000-07:00

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:

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!
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

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

2008-06-22T01:24:00.000-07:00

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."

"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?

What just happened?

2008-06-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Bike rage

2008-06-16T14:35:00.001-07:00

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...

2008-06-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

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...

RESULTS!!

2008-06-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-13T05:48:00.001-07:00

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

Gah

2008-06-13T02:13:00.000-07:00

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!

A brief update

2008-06-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

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!

Feeling like Eeyore

2008-06-06T13:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Fat-Bottomed Girls

2008-06-05T23:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-05T00:46:00.000-07:00

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...

When it rains it pours

2008-06-03T09:22:00.000-07:00

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...?

2008-06-03T02:24:00.000-07:00

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?

The best kind of rain

2008-06-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-02T03:13:00.003-07:00

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.

Frustrated

2008-05-30T10:03:00.001-07:00

In the months since this post I've been fighting hard to stay celibate. Well, I say fighting - for the most part I haven't found it that hard. Except yesterday I got a bit hot under the collar and it's pissing me off. Today I cracked and said you know what I just need to get off a little, a little fantasy to set me straight and then I'll be fine. 10 seconds in I hit a brick wall and the libido just died. Tried again just now... did ok and then thought - do I really want my first orgasm after months of no touching, no fantasising, no nothing to be something that doesn't involve OtherHalf? This is a fairly futile line of thought as that means no more orgasms until we're married... if we ever are married... This time no brick wall. Me, actively, consentingly, letting go. Choosing not to. Man I wish I could just forget sex.

Gah

2008-05-30T02:00:00.000-07:00

Oh man I'm ill again :(

With no time to get better either - I've got a big meal out tonight, and OtherHalf's parents are here tomorrow. If I'm ill they'll blatantly think I'm hungover.

Worse, I went to print off copies of extended essay / project for my supervisers and low and behond discovered a horrific typo :*(

Late night at the water hole

2008-05-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

I tend to make a point of not getting too close to the athletes I coach. It's always good to maintain some distance: not least because it gives you a) a sense of authority and b) a much cleaner conscience when you have to bite the bullet and do what's good for the team, not good for somebody's ego, or for their work ethic.

The other thing is that it stops them thinking of you as a friend. Don't get me wrong, I've had some good friends amongst those I've coached. But.... well men tend to be ok. They tend not to want to talk about their feelings much anyway. But girls... It's a fairly common occurrence following a big drunken celebration dinner to get someone whose thought process I suspect goes along the following path:

I am so sad and full of relationship woe
I want advice
FinalsBlogger has always given me good advice
FinalsBlogger seems very authoratitive (yes dear, about sport)
I will ask FinalsBlogger for advice

Now this makes me sound like a heartless degenerate, which isn't the case. As it happens I do think I give good advice, and I will talk somebody down from a crisis. But it does strike me as slightly bizarre occasionally that young women gravitate to me with their relationship troubles. Especially when, in some scenarios, my first instinct is to shout Dump him! Dump him! and find the guy for the purposes of making it quite clear to him how much of a piece of worthless scum he is.

If it wasn't already clear, this made up a large part of my evening last night.

I also woke up with a rare and special hangover today (rare and special because I just don't get hungover, far too sensible about toast and gallons of water before bed: not because it was a hangover with sparkles).

Can't let it go

2008-05-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

As mentioned here I've already worked out the best and worst case scenarios for my degree. Unless there is some miracle or I've completely misunderstood a question I am getting a 2:1. (I should probably point out that they don't scale our papers. Last year the mean for one paper dropped by 10%, and they said that since it wasn't clear whether it was a hard paper, a bad year of students or bad teaching, they weren't prepared to compensate).

Yet still I am obsessing.

Some of my friends are in the habit of trying to think of e.g. 20 people who will do worse than them, as a way of "proving" their 2:1 is safe. I've been labouring under the misapprehension that only 8 2:2s were given out in my subject last year. Except I neglected to count people who'd had their name removed from the pass list: which is naturally most likely to be those who know they might do badly. Upon reading the examiners' report I discovered that in the last 3 years a total of 42 1sts and 3rds have been given out (i.e. an average of 14 a year) - not 8.

Not that I'd been playing this game - but 14% is a bit bigger than 8 no?

But then on the other hand the highest 2:2 bracket is numerously described (in the various papers) as:

Just satisfactory
Covering most of the major points
A weakish argument
Small omissions or incorrectnesses

I think that if I'd done that I'd know wouldn't I?

And equally a 1st class paper (the lowest mark for it, obviously, not the highest marks) is described as simply being good and having "adequate" extra material included not from the lectures.

I'm not even sure I trust my own judgement anymore :-S