Sat in my room this morning for a good half-hour with the cleaners, talking about knitting and Dan Brown, and Northern Ireland and 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas'.  My knowledge of pop-literature is at least as good as that of literature with any weight to it.  I love talking to the cleaners.  They're lovely, and they know more about you than you do about them because after all they're cleaning your room, and they chat like nobody's business and they take you at face value.

Just to let you know that I'm going to be off the radar from today, for a week.  I'm going home, to see my parents and my sister, and then I'm going to see M.  Thus I shall be near a computer but resisting the urge to look at it - I've decided I've spent far too long in the last few weeks staring at a computer screen so besides the old e-mails via college account (can't be missing out on our theatrical orders can we?) I'll be entirely out of touch til at least Thursday afternoon.  If I can keep my self-control up, that is.

So have an absolutely excellent one.  See you in a week darlings.  (By which time there shall be photos of beautiful finished things.  This is what I've been looking forward to.  Chiz.)

Piss it.  I'm really not that bothered any more.

I know about a third of the cases, of those I probably can spell a quarter.  I've had three very late, very stressed nights and three very early, equally stressed mornings.  (I know, I have no stamina any more.  It's the cold.  I've never had to do it dosed up before...)  I can't really take any more.  So piss it.  It'll go how it goes.

Obviously I don't mean that and I really really want to do well... but honestly.  There are only so many times you can be in abject terror before you stop caring.  As much.

This time tomorrow, I hereby decree, does not exist.

...when things get on top of you and you snap.  (What you really need to do is delete the blog entry and start again when you're coherent.)

Yesterday was Just One Of Those Days, I think, where nothing went to plan and I wasn't equipped to deal with it.  All credit is due to H for antihistamine, tea and chocolate, and A, for sitting at his computer all evening with the patience of a saint, letting me get over myself, not asking any awkward questions, sending me all his notes and then waiting til after this morning's exam before acknowledging that anything had been wrong.  I must be among the luckiest people in the world to have so many friends I feel so completely inferior to but who still seem to like me.

Effectively what has happened over the last few days, for anyone who ought to know (and there are several of you) is a combination of things.

• This morning I had what every first year lawyer at Durham anticipated to be the worst exam of their life.  I finished teaching myself the course at ten to seven this morning, having been up for nearly an hour.  It went alright, I think.  As well as I could have hoped for.  But I have been wetting myself for the last three days.
• I've also got hayfever for the first time in my life, and until H worked her magic yesterday evening (well, gave me a pill) had no form of relief for it.  So I felt like I had the flu for all of yesterday, couldn't concentrate at all, had a terrible headache and just wanted to crawl into bed.  Were it not for the exam to end all exams.
• A friend of mine drunkenly confirmed various things I already knew about what he thinks about me.  At the time I feigned ignorance and have made no mention of it since, but I notice he keeps trying to touch me, or brush against me, and generally otherwise to demand my attention - more so than before.  This quite understandably makes me nervous; I do not like being the object of anything I can't and won't reciprocate.  It's the most worrying thing - unrequited what have you is so very well documented, but only ever from one side.  (Reading this probably didn't help matters.  Personally I think it's very clever.  How do you respond to it, though?  Honestly?)
• I've just agreed to stage manage a show I was doing the props for anyway, at the end of term.  I worry for doing something like this where I haven't got anyone to hold my hand and show me where I'm going wrong.  They're using projections.  It's going to be hard work.  Props is like my comfort zone now.
• You know when you say something that makes you out to be  horrible person?  I did, a few nights ago.  And someone picked up on it.  I value the opinion of this person.  They didn't say anything.  I really wish they hadn't noticed, or at least challenged me over it so I could explain to them that it's not what I meant at all.  I don't take advantage of people.  I don't like people being taken advantage of.  So therefore I'm obsessing over it.
• Someone keeps ringing me, every few nights, which upsets me because I'm ignoring the phone and I know I can't forever.  But I really haven't got an hour to waste at the moment being a blank canvas for someone else's ego.
• To cap the lot I've run out of teabags.
  

For this reason, I think a day's silence is in order, just to reassess myself.  Which is why I have Riverdance on and I am going to go now and work.  Concentrate on things that don't involve value judgements for once.  If any of the above can be construed to make me selfish, construe it.  I feel it at the moment.  Construe all you like.

Two exams left, Tuesday and Wednesday, without dispute the most difficult and horrible of the lot of them.  However this morning I woke up feeling like my entire head's being smothered by a very large pillow.  Clearly this is what happens when you have one gin and tonic at about half past six and then talk about maths and Arabic til you're half-dead.  I feel like... well, like I did at the end of last term.  Only with no reason whatsoever.

Given that this is entirely pathetic, I thought I'd show you something that cheers me up a bit.  I said about two weeks ago that I'd finished the first of a pair of fingerless gloves, and that I'd have the second one done in a few weeks.  This has yet to happen - I'm about a quarter of the way through, partly because I've not had time, partly because I've got distracted by a beautiful blanket (in the black - it's already looking fantastic, I'm about a tenth of the way through, I reckon.  It's going to take ages...).

So here, in its absence, is evidence of beautiful right-hand glove, in all its speckled-green, beaded, cabley glory.



Isn't it lovely?  This is what I knit for.  Here's the detailing a bit closer:



I can't wait to wear them.  On a related note, things in the pipeline include socks for roommate who used not to understand what the big deal was, and a really gorgeous soft handspun something for a friend with a nearby birthday who cares about how she looks...  Pictures/expostulations about gorgeous things to follow!

On an entirely other note, I discovered a poem earlier which isn't mine, but I read it when I was about fourteen and still found it funny.  Can't remember who it was by, but as soon as I can find out I will do.

DISTANT SHORES

Don't pretend you understand,
Nod, or try to take my hand.
Don't patronise me with that look,
Say, "I can read you like a book!"
You can't.  Not now, not then, not ever.
Believe me, you are not that clever.
"Teenage angst" is not my label,
I won't fit that tidy fable.
I'm in here and you're outside
You're the cliffs and I'm the tide.
You don't know me anymore,
To you I'm just a distant shore.
I stand alone on shifting sand
And you will never understand.

It has occurred to me that recently there has been a sharp rise in circulating Crap Poetry on Facebook.  (Please don't take this the wrong way, any poets who read this!)  There has been a rise in circulating poetry in general, but particularly shifting sands alone-in-a-crowd attack-of-the-elements-as-metaphor-for-internal-turmoil.  Which is all well and good once, and I've seen done very well... but every few days?  Expecting critique?

The noise I'm currently making is approximately that of a strangled cat.  Surely this isn't that cruel?

The handwarmers.  They make everything better.

If you are currently hard at work studying for any reason, you may find that this is an ailment you are suffering from.  On the arm that you don't write with, have a look at the elbow.  If it's sore, that's reviser's elbow.  Five in seven people mid exams that I asked had it, the other two being someone who reads handouts in bed and someone who procrastinates chronically.  Have a look.  Are you suffering from reviser's elbow?  And more to the point, is it a mitigating circumstance?

I feel like my ribcage is being slowly crushed.  The comfort music has come out of the darker recesses of Windows Media Player and I'm surviving on Christy Moore, Carole King and Pink Floyd pretty much on repeat, vast amounts of brain-slamming strength coffee and simple, repetitive knitting.

I was talking to a Philosophy student this lunchtime.  I think Law and Philosophy are more related than I like to admit, and the hardcore reading is a good part of that.  It was nice to talk to someone who also reads their set texts and the words start spinning in your head after the second sentence, and you can't take any of it in.  Every subject has its frightening bits.  Mine goes a bit like this:

European Communities Act 1972 Section 2(4)
The provision that may be made under subsection (2) above includes, subject to Schedule 2 to this Act, any such provision (of any such extent) as might be made by Act of Parliament, and any enactment passed or to be passed, other than one contained in this Part of this Act, shall be construed and have effect subject to the foregoing provisions of this section; but, except as may be provided by any Act passed after this Act, Schedule 2 shall have effect in connection with the powers conferred by this and the following secions of this Act to make Orders in Council [or orders, rules, regulations or schemes].

So that's my mind-screw, syntax, what's yours?  (If anyone can translate the above into standard English I'd be much obliged; two of us this afternoon didn't have a clue.)

One week left.  There is a red patch on the knuckle of my right-hand ring finger where I've had a pen in it so much.  For the record, my left elbow is red raw.

Seeing as I have basically been unable to talk about anything but law and knitting recently - sorry about that - I thought now would be a good time for a list of other things that have featured heavily in my life in the last week or so.  L-- and k------g are therefore outlawed in this list.  Even though my first exam for the former is TOMORROW MORNING OHGOD and the latter comprises most of what is getting me through revising the former.  Here goes anyway.

• Coffee.  Has featured heavily, I must admit.
• Unusual and exciting dancing.  Partly Eurovision-based, partly because there is no ballroom dancing OR salsa til after... til June, and therefore I'm having to improvise.
• Theatre.  Shouldn't be.  Missing it like nobody's business.  Therefore I am devouring props lists, and making plans to see Little Shop of Horrors next week.  It's going to be great.  Also took a break on Friday night to see the improv comedy troupe.  Most exciting.
  
• Rain.  Sadly.  However-
• Long 2 hour walk in same yesterday afternoon, culminating in cake at Aidan's [College].  Oh yes indeed.

That's really about it.  Clearly my life has taken a turn for the more boring since I failed to think about anything except the various meanings of A Good Yarn.

ENGLAND EXPECTS
                  - Ogden Nash

Let us pause to consider the English,
Who when they pause to consider themselves they get all reticently thrilled and tinglish,
Because every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz:
That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is:
A club to which benighted bounders of Frenchmen and Germans and Italians et cetera cannot even aspire to belong,
Because they don't even speak English, and the Americans are worst of all because they speak it wrong.
Englishmen are distinguished by their traditions and ceremonials,
And also by their affection for their colonies and their contempt for the colonials.
When foreigners ponder world affairs, why sometimes by doubts they are smitten,
But Englishmen know instinctively that what the world needs most is whatever is best for Great Britain.
They have a splendid navy and they conscientiously admire it,
And every English schoolboy knows that John Paul Jones was only an unfair American Pirate.
English people declaim sparkle and verve,
But speak without reservations of their Anglo-Saxon reserve.
After listening to little groups of English ladies and gentlemen at cocktail parties and in hotels and Pullmans, of defining Anglo-Saxon reserve I despair,
But I think it consists of assuming that nobody else is there,
And I shudder to think where Anglo-Saxon reserve ends when I consider where it begins,
Which in a few high-pitched statements of what one's income is and just what foods give one a rash and whether one and one's husband sleep in a double bed or twins.
All good Englishmen go to Oxford or Cambridge and they all write and publish books before their graduation,
And I often wondered how they did it until I realised that they have to do it because their genteel accents are so developed that they can no longer understand each other's spoken words so the written word is their only means of communication.
England is the last home of the aristocracy, and the art of protecting the aristocracy from the encroachments of commerce has been raised to quite an art.
Because in America a rich butter-and-egg man is only a rich butter-and-egg man or at most an honorary LLD of some hungry university, but in England he is Sir Benjamin Buttery, Bart.
Anyhow, I think the English people are sweet,
And we might as well get used to them because when they slip and fall they always land on their own or somebody else's feet.

Well, darlings, the things I do for you.  (Under the pretence of it counting as revision, of course.)

The European Parliament elections are nearly upon us and I'm sure, as conscientious and forward-thinking individuals that you, like me, will have (a) no idea who your current MEP is, (b) similarly little clue who is standing for election, and consequently (c) a very low probability of actually voting.

It's a well-known fact that apathy actually causes your brain to turn into a form of muesli (similar to Eurovision, Deal Or No Deal and Pot Noodles - you have been warned), so in the interests of your own sanity and shares in cereal companies, here is a brief synopsis of Useful Stuff.

The EU has three different bodies in it that do all the decision-making (yes, here comes the revision): the Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers.  What basically happens is that when European law is passed, the Commission proposes it and writes it, the Parliament debates it and sends it back for revision if they need to, and then when they've approved it it goes on to the Council of Ministers to be made into actual law.  The lovely people in the Commission work on behalf of the EU as a whole (including one Commissioner from each member state - currently ours is Peter Mandelson), the Council consists of all the heads of state (this is why Gordon Brown disappears off to France for a day or two every week or so - he is working of sorts, promise), and the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are all voted in by the people in each member state.

Rather sadly, there's both a lot of apathy and a lot of dislike directed at the EU from Britain.  (Frankly I think if you don't vote you lose your right to complain, but that may well be the draconian in me coming out.)  It's all a bit of a shame because we all have proportionally elected representatives in the Parliament (which is more than can be said in Westminster, where it's first past the post), and we're all affected by what happens in Brussels and Strasbourg so it does seem a little illogical not to pay any attention to Europe and hope it'll go away.  For a start, it won't.

This lovely website is the one that tells you who your current MEPs are by region.  When you look at them, you'll see that most of them are affiliated to a British political party (Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, probably UKIP somewhere, you know the drill - Fun fact: I once met a UKIP MEP.  Worst conflict of interests I've ever come across) and a European political party (Party of European Socialists, European People's Party, Liberal Democrat Alliance etc - Wikipedia's got a decent quick description of the major ones here, and yes, there is a Communist party...)  You'll also see that each region has more than one MEP.  There are 78 UK MEPs at the moment, going down to 72 next month, out of 785 altogether across the EU.  Considering that there are 27 member states, the UK is pretty influential.

As far as I can tell, there's no centralised place that tells you who all the candidates are for a region at the moment - anyone who can correct me on this, I'll be much obliged.

But that's about it.  Go forth and be interested!  And don't forget, for goodness' sake, to vote!

This is a plea to anyone higher up than me in the education system.  Please.  I need to know.  How did your actual results in the first year of your degree compare with how you thought you were going to do?  Because I am really, really worried, and could do with anything that might either calm me down and stop me panicking, or alternatively let me know the amount of effort I should be putting in.  I am trying very hard to be objective about this, but where I've just come from, 40% was for people expecting a D, not people who have spent the last five years getting straight As and the occasional B.  I'm doing my best to keep a bit of perspective here but I have honestly no idea how this is going to go.  The part of essays that I've done most well at so far has been the research, and obviously that's not much use mid-exam, you don't have a library at your disposal.  I don't honestly think I could reproduce one of those essays in timed conditions in two hours, and obviously they can't be expecting me to, but I am going into this with no idea what to aim for, and I could do with any help anyone can give me right now.

I come from the Of Course You Can Do It You're Just Not Trying Hard Enough School of Achievement.  I just at the present moment have no idea what counts as enough.  And whilst I am well aware that finalists have it far worse than I do and therefore not to complain too vehemently - at least they have some previous experience to go on.

I also wish anyone with exams in the next month, and indeed in the past month, of any kind or level, the best of luck.  I'm rooting for you.  And I for one think you're very much good enough.

Rather unexpectedly, and quite amusingly for anyone who has ever met me, I ended up last night at an Alt-Soc gig at a little weeny place called Fishtank.  I'd heard of it before, mostly in the context of comedy, but never actually been until yesterday - it's very small, consists mainly of bar (by which I mean the actual piece of furniture, not that it's exactly enormous, but then neither is Fishtank) and for the majority of last night was full of people with fringes straightened at an angle and leopard print bags.  And, of course, me and K.  R was teching the first act, we didn't just randomly turn up, we were there to support him - so we watched the first lot and then disappeared off to the pub til coming up to eleven then came back to clear up.  (It's not a good night out any more until I've coiled some cables...)

It was... interesting.  It's one thing to hear someone talking about breaking free and doing things for yourself and miscellaneous authority-bashing, but darling isn't it a little clichéd, with you in your hoody and your Mighty Boosh t-shirt rapping about fire?  I wonder if these people really think they're subversive - they can't do, can they?  It's all irony.

So yes, the band we stuck around for were very talented, and very clever, and therefore quite worth hanging around to watch, but it has to be said that it wasn't really my thing and while I'm very much appreciative of democracy and not being taken advantage of, it did rather reinforce my opinion that when you give somebody liberal a guitar, only bad things happen.

We left before the next band, the noise of which was far too loud, and wandered down to the nearest pub that didn't have about four hen nights going on outside it, and had a discussion about decibels, and three- and five-pin plugs.

When we came back to put the equipment away, I think I in my skirt and ballet pumps coiling cables at least felt a bit incongruous.  It modified my understanding a bit from, "Nobody is looking at you specifically unless you do something to make them look at you," to, "Nobody is looking at you specifically unless you look a bit different, or do something to make them look at you, and even if they do, interest does not necessarily imply like or dislike, only curiosity."

I wonder how many people would benefit from thinking that on a more regular basis.  Strange that it should be comforting.  Hmm.

Durham does weather to extremes: full-on 100% bird-chirpingly glorious sun, monsoon seasons, gale force seven winds.  It even goes for overcast with a vengeance.  And all in quick succession.  It's really quite surprising sometimes.

In an effort to procrastinate from revision, I got out this morning a story that I started writing a year and a half or so ago.  If you're particularly intent on not revising either, you can find the pilot attempt, if you like, here.  It still starts with almost exactly the same words, but has changed in character ever so much as it reaches fifty pages of tiny writing in unlined notebook.  (I think it's just over 20,000 words, but have no way of telling accurately any more.)  It surprises me that, for the first time in anything I've written, even though the writer sounds like me a year ago and nothing like me now the story is still something I find fascinating and know exactly where I'm going with.  The emphasis has changed enormously.  I've barely looked at it four or five times since October.  And I'm still trying to decide whose cause I like best and therefore who I'd like to win.  But when I do sit down with it I can reel off five hundred words or so without even looking up, just to push it forwards.  I am aware that the two main characters have the most pretentious names in the history of teenage girls writing stories, and at least one of them will change when I've worked out what to change it to.  As yet, it involves no rape and very little pillaging, a goodly number of sausage sandwiches, and at least four people in dark overcoats and pinstriped suits.  And one character, my absolute favourite of the lot, has a Doctor Who scarf.

Other than that, it's been a bit of a week of it, really.  The first of a pair of beaded fingerless gloves is finished and absolutely beautiful.  Expect pictures as soon as the other one's done - it'll be about a week or two, I expect.

Oh.  And the remaining two of my housemates next year have discovered the existence of this blog.  They haven't found it yet, as far as I'm aware, but whereas the other one I think has left it good enough alone I'm now a little bit expectant of reactions to the last few months' worth of entries.  You never can tell with these things.

DST secretary.  Just to say I didn't get it.  I sort of mind.  But then, I sort of should.  More time for individual shows though, hey ho, who knows, I might get to do some producing now.

Well done to the girl that did.  Not that she'll ever read this.

This is going to be a rant about Things I'm Crap At, sorry.  As per with these things, I wanted somewhere to put it.

Yesterday afternoon, I partook in a popularity contest which, should I win, will allow me to (a) work very hard, pretty constantly for most of the next year, (b) get overwhelmingly enthusiastic about something I'm now just Really Quite enthusiastic about, (c) cadge free theatre tickets cos I'd have to run the box office one night every two weeks and it's a perk of the job (an allowed one!), and (d) put something really spectacular on my CV.

I am not a public speaker, I am really not.  After years of school plays and an AS in Performance Studies maybe this might come as a surprise, not to mention the whole obsession with politics, law, articulation in general.  I'm just not very good at it, and that makes me nervous, and that makes me worse.  The stutter returns, as does the hot flush, and it makes so much difference, I have discovered, when someone you don't know very well is sat in the middle of the auditorium (there weren't that many people, which is a blessing) and nodding like they agree with you.  On the other hand, I am aware that it is a popularity contest and I am a techie.  A fairly well-known techie, it's true, but a techie nevertheless.  I don't know.  See how it goes.

One to one, or a few to one at least, I am unbreakable, and quite happy to face the music.  I don't know why fifteen-plus people should make me so scared.  It's not very helpful.  Especially in a theatre.  When you're surrounded by actors who are happy to make idiots of themselves in front of 200+ people.  And are very clever, charismatic people to boot.  Maybe this is what politics is like.

Anyway, I am not allowed to tell anyone to vote for me, only to remind them to vote, and I should imagine the mentioning of that is okay here as I highly doubt anyone reading this is a member of Durham Student Theatre who didn't turn up to see me hust anyway.

We'll see how it goes.  It may be vast amounts of work (they're changing a lot of the constitution and the entire nature of DST and its relationship with the university this year - hell yes indeed for picking your moment!) but I really, really want this.