On the one hand.  I'm watching Marple as we speak, and... Richard Armitage... just saw the end of the Vicar of Dibley that he was in (Midge was watching it I think) and I seem to have come over all wobbly.  Oh and another thing, that bloke who was Owen in Torchwood is going to be in The Oxford Murders, which should be quite good.  But... hooooaar.  Positively edible.

 

On the other hand... fifteen minute phone call from M this afternoon doesn't seem nearly enough after months of an hour on the phone five evenings out of seven.  And yes I am quite capable of getting on with life, I'm not a dependent wreck, you know, quite patently not.  But just because one is capable of something doesn't mean that one enjoys it, or that it's the best thing to do, or that one should or even will do it.  It's just a case of getting on with things, but I just want to curl up and sleep.  I feel utterly pathetic.  Which, of course, I'm not, it's just ten o'clock at night.

 

Do you know what?  I'm going to go away and think this through.

Do you know, I think everything is better when you have appropriate company.

 

In some cases, I think this could mean any non-malevolent company at all, such the middle of the woods at three in the morning without torch batteries.  In some cases, it might mean some particular company, such as 11am on a Sunday morning on the right-hand-side of one double bed in particular reading P. G. Wodehouse novels.  These are extremes, sometimes you can afford to be picky, sometimes you can't.

 

At Corpus, I was happy to have any company and was in that sort of mood where I could have got on with anyone, or thereabouts, as long as they were willing to talk to me.

 

Today, I was pretty much happy with the company I had.  Not entirely sure Warwick is the place for me, I think I prefer collegiate systems, but I can see how it could be perfect.  The loos are too small, and the halls of residence made me think I might find Nelson Mandela's room off a first-floor corridor, but otherwise, yeah, it's decent.  Decent.

 

Saturday.  I can't quite get my head around it.  So I'm not going to, until the last minute, I think.  So that'll be Saturday evening.  Sigh.  Alright then.

This will amuse you: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6998619.stm (and do have a look, go on, it's got "americas" in the address, you know you'll love it).

 

Generally, at the moment.  I see I've not been writing all that much... well, that's good, I've not written anything other than "sorry I haven't written" in my diary for the best part of a week so at least you're not on your own.

 

I see that Northern Rock is having one hell of a time at the moment, lucky for them, if I ahd last year's Economics teacher we'd be debating this hotly for most of the week, but as it is I think this is unlikely because - whoopee! Globalisationthebasics and Anintroductiontocosts take presidence.  And you wonder why I hate this subject??

 

YEEARGH!! on a slightly different topic, because Cipher Challenge 2007 is here and it's called The Quantum Code and it's not as snazzily designed as previous years (I seem to recall the Egyptian one back in... ooh... 2003? was rather lovely), but, hell, it is woooonderful and I love it anyway.  And it's got someone who may or may not be dead in it.  And I love it.  Quantum cryptography... *spineshivers*  September 27th.  There are too many things happening that week.

I would just like to say that I was a bit worried about Durham, and about how grey and isolated it would be.  I was also worried that it was a long way away, the course or accomodation or what have you would be disappointing... and most of all, that it wouldn't live up to Cambridge in the slightest.

 

I was utterly wrong.  It is fantastic, and if I don't get into Cambridge, I would be absolutely overjoyed to spend the next three years there.

 

Plus the idea of formals is frankly inspirational.  Aaay :D

 

I am shocked.  This is a great loss indeed, she was an incredible woman and an inspiration - showing you can run a multi-national company, reap fantastic profits and still have (and more importantly demonstrate) a conscience.

 

Thought you ought to know.

First day back at college with the LVI here as well, and they're bloody noisy, that's my first impression.  K told me over the summer that UVI work harder (whether they admit to it or not), so maybe it's a product of that but I'm really noticing it... you'd think they'd take the little library man yelling "Guys, this is a SILENT area.... Guys... guys... SHUT UP!!  Guys!!" a bit more seriously.  But no, there we go.  Some people just Will Not Learn.  And LLM is starting to remind me of my old geography teacher... remember him?  The name temporarily escapes me.  His son asked my sister out in the first year.  He used to take the stairs four at a time.  Gilbert.  That's the one.

 

And anyway, it's only the first day, they'll get into the swing of things hopefully as soon as somebody actually gives them some work to do.

 

Weekend was crap up until about 6.45pm on Sunday, at which point it got a WHOLE lot better and made me very happy indeed :) Six months, good grief, since when have I done two months without getting a) bored out of my skull, b) patronising, c) picky or d) restless?  Which says something very special about M more than it does about me.  But that's as it should be, I've not been this reasonably contented with life... ever, I think.  Which is quite a nice thought.

 

One other thing - does snarling at people when you haven't had a decent cup of coffee in 24 hours count as an addiction?  I got home last night and had three mugs of the stuff, and proceeded to help Lily with her Maths homework.  Not that the latter is relevant to the former.

 

Off to Durham tonight, so contactable only via mobile - and please do, because I will be stuck in a car with Dad wondering whether it's pushing my luck to make him listen to KT Tunstall's new album, which I bought yesterday (in HMV all by my very self I might add) and looks to be brilliant... but not even slightly his cup of tea, shall we say.  Moral support, anyone?  And anyway, I don't even know why we're going to Durham, M+D (well, M, but it counts as the same thing) don't want me to go because it's Too Far Away For You To Come Home In An Emergency.  I'm sorry, is this a downside?  I was quite looking forward to living by myself as opposed to mid-episode of Keeping Up Appearances, actually.  But there we go, if it's a nice place... and if they actually want me... *sigh*

 

God guys, shut up, or you will be asked to leave.  This is a silent study area.  Get it right, guys.

 

Right, I really should get on with this Economics.

...I'm going to have to do this Economics holiday assignment, or I will fail miserably in my promise to myself not to hand anything in late this term.  I wonder how long it'll last, but I'm actually quite impressed by three days.  As it is, I am currently sat in the lovely new library listening to alternately depressing and danceable music, feeling Studenty and wishing I have some work to do that's vaguely interesting.  Cost benefit analysis.  I mean really.  The phrase that comes to mind is, "You chose that poem, Hugh.  And for God's sake why?"  I'm not entirely sure if it's relevant or just that I'm in a Fry and Laurie mood.

 

No, really, I do have to get on with this.

 

Good points about today: coffee, yay, chocolate buttons (and subsequent faces), the phrase "Don't do crack, kids", unfair dismissal, bra shopping, more coffee (this time mixed with the chocolate)... buckets.  Marks and Spencer.  Yes, it's a good day.

 

See, I can't do any Economics now, they're closing the IT suite.  So ha.  Except that I may have to get up first thing tomorrow to do it.  To every silver lining, there's a cloud.  Ah well.  I suppose I'll live.

 

Well, THAT was pointless.

It's going to take a bit of doing not to get bogged down this year, I think.  I know one person already has and I'm close to it but I'm not about to give in.  Oh no.  Not now I have the where and the when, and (albeit possibly temporarily) the drive.  That's why I'm turning things down, getting my head down, and getting on with things.  That's why I've made the to do list, and I've sat down and crossed off almost a third of it tonight.

 

The new library, if you like that kind of thing, which I do, is beautiful.  Why?  I'm not excited by books, stop acting like it's one of Fi's Idiosyncracies.  The books are part of it, though.  Part of it is the fact that there is somewhere to work where nobody is looking at me or interrupting me.  Part of it is the noise levels - low, but audible - which is the perfect working level for me and one of the reasons I did my Maths coursework sat in Costa, I have to be around other people to work, it just makes me more efficient if there's low noise but not silence.  It stops me feeling so self-absorbed and lonely.  Part of it is how forcibly it reminds me of the Cambridge Law library, which I fell in love with the moment I saw.  It's as if, if I can't have that, thank you for making the effort to bring me a substitute.  So there you go.

 

A few more cultured books for me to read, I think the reading list is going up in the world, at least temporarily.  Things one is supposed to have read.  Things I like to have an informed opinion on.  The Young Pretender suddenly has the wherewithall to be believable.  Well, not now.  Give me time, and don't ask difficult questions.  Just watch the reading list.

 

I wish... I could write like Daniel Handler.  I wish it just flowed, like beautiful brush-stroke writing that seems to fit loneliness and celebration into the same pattern, so that they fit, and you can understand it, and more importantly recognise it.  I was wondering, today, about my diaries and whether they'd ever get published.  If I read back through them, though, I always know they won't be because I hate the sound of my own voice more than four months back; me then and me now gets slowly more and more out of sync every day.  And the thing about publishing diaries is that all of it is there, not just the bits you like or that show you favourably or, effectively, sound like you now.  All of it, as you grow and before you grow.  And I don't think I could let people I know see that, or even people I don't know.  I've given up on Glass Houses (the story I've been writing for a year or so) because I don't like the sound of my own voice back then any more, and I know, I know for a fact that it sounds stupid.  I wish it wasn't my style of writing, I wish my style was fresh and original and expressive, but evidently it isn't.  So there you go.

 

Maybe I do you a disservice.  Nobody tells me these things any more.

Sat watching The Queen with M and L and an ironing board out, and I feel a little like I did watching The Government Inspector - that is, like there is something terribly wrong with this country but who am I to say what it is or where it's coming from, or even if it's all smoke and mirrors?  And why, tell me, why, does the vote seem to be so redundant?  What is the point of a democracy, other than that it's the best of a bad lot?

 

Back to college first thing tomorrow.  It's... a bit sad, I think.  We don't appear to have had a summer holiday, or at least I don't.  Working.  Being busy.  It's not been enough, not by the standards of anyone who counts - I could have done so much more with a thirty-six hour day... like catching up properly on my sleep debt, and reading a few Law textbooks and writing letters to the people I should have written to.  Walking places, like back home from Romsey via that path behind the Plaza by the canal I keep seeing but never quite have enough time to try out.  Seeing people, drinking coffee.  But it was not to be.

 

Oh well.  Today was good, though.  Very good.  Breath of fresh air.  Mmmm.