The end of the decade

A concise summary of this New Year's Eve, because I'm still not out of bed and Rikki will get impatient if I blather on.

I just got off the phone with Matthew, who is doing even less tonight than we are: I think we were supposed to go out, but we're still in bed, so the plan seems to have changed to ushering the new decade in with a home-made curry in front of the telly. We went out for a Chinese last night in honour of Rikki's birthday, so we're not complete hermits. Only slightly.

Here's wishing all my readers a very happy New Year!

Older, but perhaps not wiser

All is well in the world again. Today is Rikki's birthday, meaning that I'm now dating a 22 year-old (aren't I a lucky girl?), and he's been claiming birthday rights since midnight. Unfortunately, this also means he made me watch Logopolis.

I think we had been supposed to go out to the pub last night- it was Rikki's friend's birthday- but no one made a move to leave, so we stayed indoors and ordered a Chinese. Rikki brought back a tin of Roses from his parents', and there's a giant chocolate birthday cake on the kitchen counter. Needless to say, this makes me very happy. The sugar-induced hyperactivity meant that I didn't sleep before six this morning, and I'm still not technically out of bed.

Rikki fixed the bed I broke a while back by jumping on it, so props to him.

Amusingly, a complete stranger messaged me on Facebook asking me out for a coffee and chocolate cake on Oxford Street. In his defence, he sounded sweet enough, but he clearly hadn't done his research into whether I'm single or not. I had to shoot him down, truthfully saying that I wasn't single, today is my boyfriend's birthday, and we already have chocolate cake here. Plus, the dude looked pretty old; he's hidden his year of birth on his profile, so it's safe to assume that he is old.

I've had enough

"Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires."

- Paul, quoting someone I do not know

In about three hours, I'll be at Rikki's. I haven't seen him in nearly six days: I was complaining to poor long-suffering Paul (he's too sweet to tell me to shut up and get over myself) that this separation has sent me crazy. It also seems to have implanted dark thoughts into my brain, and they have no right to be there. My inability to sleep until the early hours drove me to self-medicating with the equivalent of eight shots of Baileys last night, although any soporific effect was sadly countered by Rikki texting me at two in the morning while he was watching The Power of Kroll.

The sooner I get the hell out of my house, the better.

Petty concerns

After a terrible night in terms of sleep- Rikki kept texting me while watching City of Death- I rose from my bed and made a beeline for my computer. As usual, I logged into Facebook, and discovered that Craig has invited all his friends from Imperial to an exam afterparty in January; except me, of course. Ohnoes! Whatever shall I do? (That was sarcasm, by the way).

"Stop obsessing", Rikki scolded me.

Mind you, even if I had been invited, I wouldn't have gone, for the same reason that I didn't go to the BioSoc Christmas dinner. Studiously ignoring people is very difficult when they're sitting right next to you.

I have one more lecture to write up, then I'm free to slack off for a few days.

Creative desert

Rikki texted me at five o' clock this morning. I read it, decided that it wasn't very important, and went straight back to sleep.

I spent most of my day writing up lecture notes; I'm about to go and watch a film, then I shall probably go to bed and be grateful that this spell of being housebound will end soon. I can't take much more of this crushing boredom. It doesn't even provide me with anything interesting to write about.

'Poncy' just reached a new level

My parents are selling the furniture from the two rooms on the first floor. Paradoxically, although this could pay off the rest of the mortgage on this house, their primary motive for selling it is that it won't all fit into a smaller house if we move. However, I'm informed that there's still "no guarantee" that we will.

The furniture from the first floor is a collection of rather expensive French stuff from the 1930s and 1940s. It has always been regarded by me as inferior to "normal" furniture in terms of comfort: this view was cemented when a particularly delicate dining chair collapsed when I sat on it, aged eight.

It seems that I've been sitting- albeit very gingerly- on a gold mine all this time. You see, our house is featured in Christie's latest auction catalogue; in fact, the entire collection is comprised of stuff currently residing in our living room. I wish I was joking. Said living room is even depicted on the side of the Christie's building in Paris, albeit with the plug sockets airbrushed out of the photo.

"I'll be glad to see the back of that", I said, pointing to the African tribal mask that has been scaring people shitless on the stairs to the second floor for the past few years.

In the introduction to the catalogue, my father is described as "an Englishman with an affiliation to French culture" (not because he married a Frenchwoman, either) with "a sensitivity to the art of that epoch", or some shit like that.

This is insane, but the most insane part is that my father didn't even show my Dalek to the photographer who visited earlier this month. Surely that's a twentieth-century design classic too?

I miss you

My general opinion on Boxing Day is that it's fucking depressing, and this year was no exception. The only thing stopping me from hightailing it to Fenchurch Street and jumping on the next train to Essex is the pile of lecture notes still sitting in a corner in my spare room, demanding to be written up and memorised.

Barring the excellent book I read, today was quite crap. Tomorrow doesn't look set to be any better.

Warning: contains fanwank

If I'm honest, I wasn't looking forward to Doctor Who tonight: I hated The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords, so naturally the Master's reappearance didn't exactly fill me with hope.

Sure enough, I spent a fair amount of time this evening complaining that the sophisticated and suave Master, back in the day when he had a little black beard, wouldn't have gone around wearing jeans and a hoody. Or stuffed his face with a burger he bought from a greasy spoon in a lay-by. John Simm is a fantastic actor, don't get me wrong, but he isn't Roger Delgado or Anthony Ainley.

"This is going to be a rehash of The Deadly Assassin", I said as soon as I saw the Master's face replaced with a skull for a second.

Other horribly geeky comments I made over the course of the hour included:

"Is Mrs. Trefusis a reference to The Stones of Blood?"

"Ginger is like a young version of Toberman from The Tomb of the Cybermen."

Of course I spotted the Bannakaffalatta reference, and recognised the Time Lords straight away from their costumes (so did Rikki, and he was rightly proud of himself).

"Fanwank!", I shouted at the television at the end.

My main complaint is that the writers of the new series are constantly bringing characters back. It is seemingly impossible for them to leave a companion wherever they are and be done with it, as the old series always did. First we had Rose returning, and now it's Donna's turn, even though her brain is supposed to burn out if she gets so much as a sniff of the Doctor. Oh yeah, and they're bringing the Time Lords back too. Why can't they just leave well enough alone?

This one could go either way, I reckon. Mind you, even if I'd hated it, I'd still tune in on New Year's day to watch the end of it. I'm a sucker for punishment like that.

Christmas comes this time each year

Christmas in this house get less and less traditional every year. I didn't wake up until quarter to eleven, and went downstairs to find my parents stuffing themselves with mince pies. My mother was desperate for biscuits, for some reason.

"Go fetch one of Anne's presents, she usually gives us stuff like that", she asked my father, who duly went upstairs and brought down a gift-wrapped package.

"That sounds like biscuits", she said, rattling it.

She tore greedily at the paper; her face fell when she discovered that the contents were not biscuits, but Stilton and crackers. The latter were now broken as a result of the rattling.

Unwrapping the presents didn't take very long, because there weren't many of them.

"It was very inconsiderate of those relatives to die before they bought our Christmas presents", my father joked.

I'd bought him eight rolls of wine gums, which he was very pleased with. My mother was equally pleased with her box of Lindor chocolates, although she did turn her nose up at the Hermes scarf my father bought for her. She deemed it "grannyish", so they're going to London tomorrow to get it exchanged.

Two of my presents hadn't arrived yet, but I did get a Bose SoundDock for my iPod, three books, a Doctor Who videotape, a set of M&S toiletries which will no doubt be recycled as a present next year, and a pen (from my aunt in Scotland who always buys us weird presents). My parents also put £100 inside my card.

My mother spat in the face of British tradition by leisurely putting the turkey crown in the oven at half eleven, meaning that it was ready to eat by one o' clock. I hate sprouts, so I was given sweetcorn with my turkey and roast potatoes instead. Nobody had remembered to buy crackers, those little sausages wrapped in bacon, or a selection box. I'm going to go downstairs to watch The Grinch with my father in a minute, but he'll probably fall asleep after drinking all that wine.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Bah humbug!

I wish I was in Essex. Rikki told me just now that he stole a trolley this afternoon to get his last-minute Christmas shopping home, only to end up watching his mother and aunt throw it over a fence to get rid of it. Plus I'm betting his house is more festive than mine: all we have to show for the festive season is an anorexic Christmas tree, not the full-on gaudy light displays so beloved of British homes. I haven't felt particularly festive these past few years, I have to say. Come to think of it, I've spent my past few Christmases missing a certain someone (they were different people, before you wonder who on Earth I'm talking about). You do the maths.

Revising cell biology probably wasn't the best way to get into the Christmas spirit, either, but I really need to spend my time at home doing something productive, or I'll regret my laziness later. I've got less than a week in which to do some hardcore revision for my exam in January.

Somniloquy

"To bed, to bed; there's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed."

- Lady Macbeth

Out of boredom more than anything else, I Googled sleep talking. According to this website, it can be caused by the following:

• Sleep disorders such as sleepwalking and nocturnal sleep-related disorder. I've never sleepwalked in my life and I avoid eating late at night, so I don't think these are to blame.
• Certain medications. I'm not on any medication, just fluoride pills, and I've been taking those since I was a bairn.
• Emotional stress. Possibly? I'm not even going to pretend that I haven't been (whisper it) feeling sad quite a lot of the time lately, but that's not stress, that's just me overreacting to certain things and blaming it on things like hormones, tiredness, or even what day of the week it is.
• Fever. No, I haven't been ill.
• Mental health disorder. I just took an online test and my results are as follows: high chance of having schizotypal personality disorder, plus moderate chance of having histrionic personality disorder, narcissitic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder, and OCD. Nothing wrong there, then.
• Substance abuse. I don't do drugs. My hallucinations are 100% natural.

Perhaps it was just the Haribo after all.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

A cup of tea perked Rikki up, and we shared one of the bags of Haribo he'd bought me whilst watching The Invisible Enemy. Despite eating over a hundred grams of Tangfastics, I failed to bounce off the walls; however, Rikki claims that I was bouncing around in bed later on, not to mention talking in my sleep. Apparently, my hands were wandering as well (!).

I didn't get up until gone five o' clock, simply because I was putting off leaving for as long as possible. Rikki's currently on his way back to his parents' house in Essex, meaning that I won't see him again for a week. Anyone reading this who is in a long-distance relationship will probably scoff at me, but you have to bear in mind that I'm used to seeing him nearly every day. My long-distance boyfriends weren't incorporated into my life nearly as much as Rikki is. This will be our longest separation yet, and to make matters worse, I'm stuck at home with nothing much to do in the meantime.

Anyway, I eventually left at six, following an understandably drawn-out goodbye. I didn't cry.

Not until the lift doors had closed, anyway.

I wasn't sure whether Southeastern were running a Saturday timetable, as they were yesterday, or a normal one, so I had no idea what time my train home was. I got to Waterloo with no major problems at half six, and asked when the next train to Hayes would be.

"Fifty-five, platform C", said the stressed-looking man at the information desk.

Obediently, I went down to platform C, only to be told that the Hayes train had been cancelled.

"Fuck that", I texted Rikki, who was receiving live updates of my progress. "I'm going to Victoria."

So I took a Tube to Victoria, fought my way onto a train going to the Kent coast, got off at Bromley South, and waited for a 358 bus. It took half an hour to show up and- just to add insult to injury- it was pissing down with rain when I got off. By the time I'd reached home, two and a half hours after I'd kissed my boyfriend goodbye, I was soaked and miserable. So much for the season to be jolly.

Eat, drink and be merry

Rikki is currently falling asleep on the sofa behind me. He has no reason to do this, especially seeing as he only got up at half past four; nevertheless, I've covered him up with the duvet.

I stopped off at the M&S in Bromley on the way to his, became quite distressed when I couldn't find any apple crumbles on the shelves, and bought Eve's puddings instead (I'm still not quite sure what they are, but the basic premise seems to be an apple sponge with custard).
We ate that lot in front of the generically-named Planet of Evil, then exchanged Christmas presents. I'd bought him novelty socks and underpants because I knew that he'd wear them; he'd bought me tights because I instructed him to in order to avoid disappointment on my part, or indecision on his. I'd also got him a cynical Christmas card in the belief that anything cheesy would be laughed at, but he did get me a slightly cheesy one with "to my fabulous girlfriend" on the front, so I guess I was mistaken there.

While I was writing the above paragraph, I was shoved, flicked, accused of talking in my sleep, and finally made to wear Rikki's hobo hat. I don't know about fabulous, but I'm clearly long-suffering.

Even Lazarus died eventually

As my new Orange SIM card was still apparently unregistered after over a week of ownership, I went back to the Orange shop in Bromley to get it fixed. One session of musical SIM cards later, I got my diagnosis: my old blue Motorola SLVR thinks that any SIM card you put in it is unregistered, so I can't use it as my phone any more. It's a sad day, because I'm very attached to that phone, especially after getting it back from the dead when it was stolen. Plus my father is going to complain when I ask him for a new one.

I'm currently using Rikki's spare phone with my new SIM card in it (even though the phone was issued by Vodafone, this arrangement works, so it must have been unlocked at some point in its life). It's not a bad phone, but I can't keep it forever: it's not mine, and it annoys me because I can't seem to insert apostrophes into texts. I'll admit that I have warmed to it slightly more since I managed to change my ringtone to the Doctor Who theme, circa 1984. Rikki's spare Vodafone SIM card is living in my wallet until I can give it back to him. My old phone is currently housing my mother's old Orange SIM card- which it naturally claims to be unregistered- because it won't turn on at all if the Vodafone SIM card is in it.

So that's two phones and three SIM cards I'm carrying around with me. This is getting ridiculous.

Brush with fame

My mother has gone out with her gay best friend to see the Pet Shop Boys. I've wrapped Rikki's presents and written his cards, renewed my Railcard, and been sent an @ reply by Ollie Barbieri (better known as JJ from Skins) on Twitter. The heavy rain of this afternoon has given way to more snow.

Considering the fact that I've been stuck at home all day looking like an utter slob, today hasn't been that bad. I haven't done any revision, though.

I'm (snap) happy

I left Rikki's after watching Terror of the Zygons, got back to mine at half nine (having avoided killing myself by slipping on the frozen pavements), and have now uploaded the photos from Friday night. Enjoy!

Know your place

"Curiosity killed the cat my dear redrum, redrum my dear, satisfaction brought him back safe and sound, from toes to crown; from head to ground he was safe and sound."
- The Shining, Stephen King

We made a halloumi (a type of cheese which squeaks in your mouth) and pork pasta bake last night, but it wasn't cooked until about eleven o' clock, so that was a very late dinner indeed. I'd been allowed to choose pudding, so I picked toffee cheesecake and ate nearly half of it. We watched Revenge of the Cybermen and then some videos on YouTube, including some old and therefore embarrassing vlogs I made over the summer. I fell asleep on the sofa while Rikki played some more Final Fantasy, woke up to find that he was putting plates away- I seem to wake up automatically when he isn't there- and finally went to bed at half four in the morning. I still haven't gotten up yet because I don't want to leave.

Last-minute shopping

Today was a successful day of Christmas shopping. Amy and I first went to Nando's in Covent Garden for lunch, then onto the Royal Opera House gift shop. We spent an inordinate amount of time in there because Amy kept seeing extra things she wanted to buy, plus her debit card had to undergo some sort of security check, which involved phoning a number and being put on hold for fifteen minutes. While I was waiting at the till with Amy's many purchases, a strange and rather smelly woman decided to tell me about Carlos Acosta's latest performances.

Things got considerably easier after we left: I blitzed CyberCandy and the TopMan on Oxford Street, gave Amy money to buy a pair of white leather gloves as her present because we didn't see any, and went back to Rikki's to find him playing Final Fantasy on the sofa. He still is.

Methinks tonight will be a nice, quiet night in.

We're having a ball

What a night last night was. Rikki's lying next to me, sleeping off what must be a pretty bad hangover after how much he drank last night. I only had a G&T with a rather generous measure of gin, which is just as well, seeing as I had to drag Rikki home.

Amy informs me that she'd like to reschedule our shopping trip to two o' clock, so I might go back to bed after writing this. I was only up this early because I thought I'd have to leave at twelve.

So last night started off with me getting to Eden Park station to find a few disconsolate souls standing on the platform: one of them, a blond guy wearing sodden shoes and swigging from a can of Strongbow, informed me that they had been there for an hour without seeing a train. After about five minutes, one train passed at high speed, but didn't stop.

"Maybe that one's clearing the line", I said hopefully.

The train I had been planning on getting was now delayed by two minutes, according to the indicator board. I didn't take this to be a good sign, but surprisingly enough, a train did arrive at that time, and was met with considerable relief by my frozen fellow passengers. I sat with the blond guy, whose name was Olly, and learned that he's in the year below me and has applied to study Maths at university. We had a nice chat before he got off at London Bridge to go clubbing.

I didn't realise how lucky I'd been with my train until I got to Charing Cross and saw that every single train was at least delayed, if not cancelled. It was half nine, and a service to Tunbridge Wells which should have left an hour beforehand was only just having its platform announced. I was expecting the worst on the Tubes, but they were entirely unaffected, not to mention empty.

I haven't got my camera lead with me, so I'll upload the photos from last night when I get home. Suffice to say that everyone was getting into the Christmas spirit by getting drunk on Christmas spirits (credit to Alex for that line).

Chaz had been cast as Santa for the night and had his own grotto, in which he would grope unsuspecting visitors regardless of their gender. I won't say any more, because there are plenty of photos demonstrating this. Many photos were also taken of JJ, Rikki and Chris having a go on the ice rink, which was not ice at all, but a giant plastic chopping board with WD40 sprayed on it. A sign near the door forbade the use of the rink by those under the influence of alcohol, but this warning was neither heeded nor enforced.

After meeting some more of Rikki's friends and watching him steal three boxes of eighteen mince pies- that's fifty-four mince pies in total, fact fans- the Union officers and I ended up in a room in the SAC, drinking G&Ts and engaging in banter. JJ claimed that he'd been drinking for thirteen hours, and he certainly was looking worse for wear.

Me: "If I do get JJ into bed, he'll just pass out."

JJ: "There's always the morning."

Me: "That's more than I get from Rikki!"

What can I say? That elf costume was damn sexy.

It was three in the morning before Rikki and I made our farewells and left, and we didn't get to bed until five in the morning. Well, I was in bed an hour before that, but Rikki took ages faffing around refreshing Facebook and having a smoke. If I did get any sleep during the night, I don't remember it, but I suppose I must have done.

And on that note, I'm going back to bed.

"Make time go faster!"

I've spent my day acting like an utter slob: I didn't take off my pyjamas and have a shower until after lunch, and only just put some proper clothes on (I was sprawled on the sofa in my dressing gown watching Donnie Darko for most of the afternoon).

My initial outfit for the Christmas Ball tonight was to be comprised of my short black velvet dress, green tights, and a sparkly green belt with an oversized bow on it. Sadly, owing to the snow and consequent bitter cold, a rethink was in order. I grabbed my longest pair of legwarmers, which happen to be hot pink, and planned an outfit around them. By the time I leave the house, I'll be wearing three jackets, which I reckon should be enough.

I don't care if I'm dressed inappropriately for a possibly formal occasion; I once went to a black tie dinner in an Argyle jumper, for goodness' sake.

Well, I may as well do some reading to while away a couple of hours before I have to leave.

An attempt at being serious

This entry is dedicated to Lola Snow, a far more talented writer than I could ever hope to be.

When I woke up this morning and peered out of the window, I was pleased to find nothing more than a dusting of snow covering the suburban landscape. Thanks to the relative clemency of the weather, there are no serious problems with the trains on my line, and getting into London later shouldn't be as difficult as I'd previously envisaged.

The up-shot is that I have plenty of time to kill, so I decided to write about a fairly serious subject: self-esteem, mainly of the female kind, because I'm ill-qualified to write about males.

Chances are that any girls reading this will at some point in their life, maybe even without realising it, have flirted with an eating-disordered mindset. By this, I don't mean that they will have gone through a period of starving themselves, or freaked out at the thought of keeping down a normal-sized meal. I'm talking about muted jealousy over a friend's weight loss, or equally muted despair over gaining weight, however small the amount. This isn't surprising, when we live in a society that bombards people with unrealistic images of bodily perfection, usually equating to being thin; that rant's been done to death, though, so I won't go into it here.

I'm no stranger to such thinking, as I hinted on Twitter yesterday, but what scares me is how many girls don't seem to realise that these thoughts are irrational, let alone that they can ruin your life.

What also scares me is that, owing to my slightly morbid interest in the topic of eating disorders, I can pick apart people's irrational thoughts pretty quickly. Most of them seem to boil down to "if I can't be pretty, I can at least be thin" (closely related to "if I lose weight, the person I like might like me back"), "I'm unhappy, and starving myself is a cry for help", or even "everything in my life is out of my control, but I can control my eating".

If any of these thoughts strike a chord with you, please listen to me when I say that you're better than that. As well as all the guff about everyone being beautiful, everyone looks their best when they're healthy, which they certainly won't be if they're depriving their bodies of essential nutrients. The best way of getting people to like you is just by being yourself, not by weighing six stone; and if they don't like you just the way you are, fuck 'em. If everyone had that mentality, as voiced by Rudge in The History Boys, I reckon the world would be a better place.

There's nothing else I could say that probably hasn't already been covered somewhere else, but if you have any salient points you'd like to add, feel free to drop me a comment.

It's the end of term, but...

So my first term at Imperial has drawn to a close. I would say that it feels like Freshers' Week was only yesterday, but I'd be lying. It feels like about three months have passed since I first through passed the archway of Beit Quad for the 'Pre-Freshers Meet-up #1', and funnily enough, it has been about that long.

Let's follow the lecturers' advice and pick out the key points, shall we?

• Before Freshers' Week had even started, I'd been on a pub crawl and acquired an older boyfriend.
• Freshers' Week officially kicked off with Jula and I browsing through the rails of TopShop. I thought that she might turn into my second best female friend, but alas, it was not to be.
• Similarly, my hopes of being BFFs with the Linstead lot were dashed as my relationship with them slowly but inexorably deteriorated. They now completely ignore me, and it's so obvious that even Rikki can't deny it.*
• I lost my phone and got it back again, but am paying a high price for my carelessness even now: I'm still using Rikki's spare phone because my new Orange SIM card doesn't work.
• My pre-university teetotality gave way to drinking for the lulz, although this happens once a fortnight at most, and I've vowed to never get drunk again.
• I went to my first formal ball, Rikki got completely hammered and stood in front of a bus, but I had an awesome time nonetheless.
• My parents informed me that they're trying to sell the house, but at the time of writing, we haven't even had an offer yet. Thank fuck.
• Ironically, I became more and more disenchanted with my house, and now dread coming home simply because it's so boring here.
• Our first field trip was not nearly as awful as I'd expected it to be; it was there that I met Simon, who Rikki brings up in conversation more often than is probably healthy.
• I got wetter than I remember ever having been before on the London to Brighton run on Imperial's resident fire engine.**
• My hidden talent- not the one for downing pints, the other one- emerged. As did many, many cookies from our oven.
• Rikki grew a vague semblance of a moustache. I did not like it. He eventually shaved it off.
• I journeyed to Essex to meet Rikki's parents, who seemed to like me. However, Rikki has yet to journey to Kent to meet my parents.
• While my fellow freshers went clubbing, I spent my nights cuddled up to Rikki on the sofa, watching old-school Doctor Who. Je ne regrette rien.
• In terms of work, I did averagely in my coursework and missed more than a few lectures, mostly for reasons to do with the previous point.
• The President of the Student Union branded me as "a Union hack by proxy": I spend so much time in the SAC, in the union bar, or generally hearing about the state of the Union from its representatives (many of whom I know personally) that I completely agree with this description.

* Linstead lot, if you're reading this... Fuck off.
** I am totally forbidden from writing what else I was going to say. Dammit!

Forecast: snow showers

"The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry."

- Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck

I wrote the title of my last entry with the above quote in mind, knowing full well that my plans were bound to go down the toilet somewhere along the line; and, sure enough, they have. This time, the impending snow is to blame.

Last time it snowed in February, I had this to say about it:

"The snow started to fall last night, and continues to fall as I write this. London has ground to a halt as buses and trains have all been cancelled by the foot of snow (I'm not exaggerating) lying on roads and rails. Needless to say, the school cancelled all its coach services, and I've effectively had a three-day weekend: soon to become four-day, as the coaches aren't running tomorrow either."

I went on to complain that my father had hogged my computer for the entire day, leaving me to slump on the sofa in front of Sky One. My point is that snow fucks up the transport network, which I do not like one bit.

Glancing out of my window, it becomes apparent that it's snowing now. Fuck.

Anyway, I was planning on cancelling on Coley to avoid disappointment tomorrow- assuming that I miraculously made it to her house, I don't want to run the risk of being stranded in Surrey- but she told me that she's no longer free anyway, so at least neither of us feels bad.

This leaves me stuck at home for the day, until I leave for either South Kensington or Putney; I'm praying that forewarned is forearmed in TfL's case. Despite the fact that my parents are seriously considering curtailing their plans to go to the Isle of Wight, I still intend to spend my weekend with Rikki.

Thank God I've got a monthly Travelcard and a new copy of Donnie Darko.

Best laid plans

My parents are going to the Isle of Wight this weekend. What usually happens on such occasions is that they confiscate my keys and give them to the gatehouse with strict instructions not to give them back to me until Sunday, then kick me out of the house when they leave on Friday morning.

This morning, my mother shocked me by saying that she would let me keep my house keys so that I can pop in and out of the house as I choose, although I did have to promise not to bring anyone back with me. I'm still staying at Rikki's (why would I want to spend a weekend in the house by myself instead?), but this does neatly solve the problem of tomorrow.

You see, my parents are leaving the house in the morning, and I thought that I would be unceremoniously chucked out and left to fend for myself, so I arranged to go and see Coley for the day. Rikki has to come in to hand in coursework or something, and then has a SAC dinner in Putney at half seven. The Union Christmas Ball starts at eight, but I don't know anyone who's going- most people are either going home or going out somewhere else- and don't fancy turning up by myself like a loser.

So, after seeing Coley tomorrow, I can simply go home and turn up to the Ball later when Rikki finishes. I love it when things just work out.

"Why didn't I bring my gloves?"

Shortly after writing that last entry, JJ phoned Rikki to ask him for a favour: JJ lives in Falmouth halls, who had their Christmas dinner tonight, and they'd booked Jez to give lifts to people going to the dinner. The snow had subsided to drizzle and it wasn't exactly warm outside, so JJ had tried to cancel the lift-giving, but Falmouth were having none of it.

"We have to have the fire engine!", they cried.

I got out of bed and put my clothes on, cursing the masochists who were forcing me to do so; as I'd told my parents that I wouldn't be home until after dinner, I offered to come along on Jez.

As JJ ran red lights in South Kensington in the manner of a juggernaut, causing the ten or so girls clinging to the sides (myself not included, I'm an old hand by now) to emit ear-splitting squeals, I started to regret my decision.

By the time we'd made two trips and dropped off the last of Falmouth's denizens, my extremities had turned into blocks of ice and I was shaking like an aspen leaf: I later joked to Rikki that I hadn't truly experienced cold until I joined the Motor Club.

All I wanted to do was get on a train home and thaw myself out, but Southeastern trains were against me. I got to Charing Cross about fifteen minutes before my train was due to leave, so I waited patiently for the platform to be announced. Five minutes before the departure time, a platform announcement still hadn't happened, and the indicator board eventually revealed that my train was delayed. This was apparently due to earlier signal failures between London Bridge and Charing Cross, not that this explained why just about every other train was leaving with no problems.

Twenty minutes of waiting on a chilly concourse later, Southeastern announced the platform for the train after the one I'd intended to take, resigned itself to the fact that the still-delayed previous train was a lost cause, and cancelled it.

The worst part was that this train didn't even have the heating on properly. I shivered my way home, wondering if this evening was punishment from higher powers for being such a lazy bugger. It was so worth it, though.

Let it snow

We didn't wake up until ten minutes before my lectures started, and made no move to get out of bed. I drifted in and out of sleep until two o' clock, when Cat burst in.

"It's snowing!", she cried.

Rikki peered through the slats of the blinds, confirmed that there was a light sprinkling of snow on the ground, and came back to bed.

I'm still technically in bed, because it's too cold to get up and I don't have to leave for another few hours. Rikki just fetched me breakfast in bed: apple pie. Ah, I'm a lucky girl.

Cold hands, warm heart

Well, you can't say I didn't try with that last post.

I'm currently snuggled up watching telly with Rikki, following a dinner of home-made pizza: pepperoni for me and ham, sweetcorn and pineapple for him. Today hasn't been particularly taxing. In fact, I spent most of it reading diamond geezer's blog and otherwise avoiding doing any work. I did have a practical with an assessment afterwards, but that was just bunging more data into Excel and keeping my fingers crossed (it worked for the last practical, anyway, because I got 77%).

I feel fat, but happy. And that's all that matters.

Requires reader participation

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."

- Hector, The History Boys

While I was pondering what to write today, the above quote popped into my head, so I decided to go with it.

Everyone has their own little quirks, and I'm no exception. Top of the list of mine would be my synaesthesia, but there are other things too. Like my tendency to "hallucinate" when I'm on the point of falling asleep, meaning that completely random and nonsensical thoughts or images pop into my head (I've never had sex while high, but I have done so while hallucinating, and suppose the outcome is similar). Or my OCD-esque behaviour, like always having my browser tabs open in a certain order and listening to three songs on my iPod every night before I go to bed if I'm at home.

I was speaking to Coley last night: she reads this blog but, like most of my other readers, never leaves comments. As a result, I have no idea whether people are reading or not, which is why I am now urging you to go forth and leave comments. Even if you're a complete stranger who found this blog by pure chance, it doesn't matter, I won't freak out.

Does anyone reading turn into a zombie if they don't have breakfast, but become incapable of eating if they're upset? Use a particular item of clothing as a sort of security blanket? Become oddly attached to items of technology, such as outdated mobile phones? I need to know!

Medicinal qualities

My colds always go through the same pattern: sore throat, runny nose, and cough. When I went to bed last night, I'd reached the runny nose stage, and kept having to mop it on a wad of loo roll. Sexy, I know. This afternoon when I was still in bed, I'd progressed to the cough stage, but that now seems to have subsided. Therefore, I can conclude that having a duvet day did both of us good.

I've reached the point in the evening when I've had my dinner and can't start getting ready for bed for about another hour, else I'll be in there stupidly early. This is why I don't like being at home; I'll be escaping to Rikki's again tomorrow night.

Duvet day

As a reward of sorts for yesterday's productivity, I went over to Rikki's with the previously purchased M&S dinner: steak and potato hash, with apple crumble for pudding. Both the food and myself were gratefully received.

We ate dinner in front of Paradise Towers, which Rikki rightly deemed to be terrible, followed it up with the vastly superior Mawdryn Undead (yes, of course I'm talking about old Doctor Who episodes. What else?), and watched various other things until the small hours. At half three, we decided to call it a night, and went to bed, setting the alarm for seven so that I'd be in on time for my lectures. Unfortunately, I wasn't particularly tired, owing to my nine hours of sleep the previous night.

By the time the seven o' clock rolled around, I still hadn't slept a wink. Although I was feeling reasonably awake, I knew that if I didn't get any sleep, I'd be collapsing by lunchtime. We set the alarm again, this time for noon with the intention of getting in two hours later, and I eventually fell asleep.

When the alarm next went off, Rikki was extremely reluctant to get up. I consulted my schedule, found that I only had a problem class to attend, and gave up on the idea of going in at all. With that, we settled back down, and didn't get up until half four; by this point, we'd completely missed the hours of daylight.

While I was walking through Waterloo to catch my train home, a clearly inebriated man wished me a merry Christmas and happy New Year. I did likewise.

"Maybe you'll find that special someone", he said.

"I already have", I smiled.

Run-up to Christmas

Woke up, had breakfast, finished the jar of Nutella in the process, got dressed, brushed my teeth, went to M&S, bought dinner, chatted to the cashier, took the bus halfway home and walked the rest of the way, stashed shopping in the fridge, finished getting ready, printed off next week's lecture notes, went to Bromley, got a new pay-as-you-go SIM from the Orange shop, came home again, posted my number on Facebook (it was met with wild indifference), spent the £20 Amazon voucher my father's half-brother sent to me, decorated the Christmas tree, came to the conclusion that today was a productive Sunday.

I love all our retro French decorations. Most of them were purchased from Parisian department stores about forty years ago.

Postcard from the Midlands

Sure enough, I didn't see any of the Linstead lot today. I did see Andy, who I hadn't seen since my trip to Leicester back in May, when he spent the day pretending to be a Transformer and talking about sex. Not much has changed, but he's a nice guy even so. He likes Asian girls, so I said I'd take him to Imperial with me one day; I owe him for introducing me to Chicken & Bacon Ranch Subways with no vegetables and lashings of ketchup.

What else happened today?

• Kelly and I exchanged Christmas presents: giant Pocky for her, tights in varying shades of red and pink for me. We're both pretty easy to buy for.
• I also had to buy Kelly fags twice, and got asked for ID both times.
• We all had our photo taken with a man dressed as a giant turkey.
• I met more of Kelly's friends, including her most recent ex and current girlfriend. To clarify, they are separate people (but knowing Kelly, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't).
• Andy insisted on walking with me because I look "normal" and am not a "mong", a title which he applies to most of Leicester's teenage population.
• Kelly did her usual trick of patting me on the head a lot.

I was going to stay at Rikki's tonight, but I'm staying tomorrow instead. Either way, it doesn't make much difference, so I'm not complaining.

Bloody hell

Thank you, hormones, for making me emotional again last night. I don't care if that wasn't your fault, I'm going to blame you anyway; and I'm certainly going to blame you for the fact that sex is now off the cards for a week, as well as the large spot preparing to erupt on my chin.

I'm off to Leicester now to see Kelly. It should be a good day (at least there's very little risk of me running into the Linstead lot there).

I gotta break away

After my slightly misleadingly-named practical on "molecular modelling", which involved very little modelling and a lot of frantic searching on Wikipedia, I decided to pop to Leicester Square for a spot of shopping. I had to buy Kelly's Christmas present to save me getting it tomorrow on my way to Leicester, and some Christmas cards for a select few.

Sadly, it seems that I just can't get away from Imperial. I was standing on a Piccadilly line Tube, and glanced at the back of someone's head.

"That looks like Romy's head", I thought to myself, by now being familiar with what my lab partner looks like.

The person turned around, revealing herself to be Romy. We chatted until Leicester Square- she was getting off there to meet her dad- where we parted company.

Later, having bought Kelly's present, I was walking through Covent Garden when I caught sight of a tall, guy with dark hair, wearing what looked like a Linstead hoody.

"That looks like Samie", I thought to myself, "but it can't be. Oh wait, there's Craig. Yep, it's definitely them. Shit."

As usual, we completely ignored each other (or at least, I completely ignored them, it is possible that they didn't notice me at all).

At least that trip did a fine job of killing some time.

Hydrogen bonds

Last night was another late one: I started dozing off on the sofa in front of Romeo + Juliet at about one in the morning, so Rikki insisted on carrying me to bed (judging from that, he can be romantic if the mood strikes him, even if he did scoff at the film). I didn't get any sleep in the bed, though, because he was still in the living room swearing at a spreadsheet and I can't seem to sleep at his if we're not in the same room.

I deemed today's first lecture to be fairly unimportant and therefore acceptable to miss, so Rikki set the alarm for ten, and I got in slightly late for my eleven o' clock lecture. Simon was supposed to cook for me after that, but he was too tired to bother; by a stroke of luck, I ran into Chris from chocolate tasting and some of his friends in the union bar, and spent lunchtime with them instead. I skipped breakfast because I wasn't really hungry, and my appetite wasn't much greater by lunchtime, so all I've eaten so far today has been two cookies. That could be something to do with the curry, two cookies and slice of apple pie I consumed last night.

I'm so not in the mood for a practical right now, but there's no way I can avoid it. That's life!

It's just a phase that I'm going through

I'm going to put my emotional outburst on the bus down to my possible illness too. Actually, outburst makes it sound much more dramatic than it really was: I just cried in silence.

The fact that I had to wait for Rikki for four and a half hours didn't really help, either. All I wanted was a cuddle and to go back to his. I'm there now, waiting for the curry to cook while he carries on working. I would write more, but I'd rather urge you to listen to this song instead.

Poor creature

Rikki sensibly decided to come in and won't be done with whatever he's doing- mechanical design?- until after five. This gives me plenty of time to continue with my cell biology revision. Simon did suggest sleeping to kill three hours, but I think that I slept too much last night, if anything. I woke up at quarter to five in the morning and don't think I got much more sleep after that, although I was woken up by my alarm during a dream about finding a large green frog in an underground car park.

I suppose you could say I'm feeling a bit fragile today: I even resorted to sitting in the SAC with a copy of the Metro (which I hadn't been able to read on the train as I usually do, because I hadn't managed to get hold of it until I got to South Kensington station) in my break between lectures because I just wanted a bit of peace and quiet. It's probably because I'm teetering on the brink of illness.

One amusing thing that happened this morning was a girl getting on my train with the intention of only travelling one stop. She phoned someone and told them that she'd gotten on the wrong train, and would get off at London Bridge to travel back. The whole carriage full of commuters started laughing to themselves, because we all knew full well that the train doesn't stop there, as it skips out the four stops between Ladywell, where she got on, and Waterloo East. Maybe this is why some trains have the infernal habit of announcing exactly where they're going and what the next stop is every two minutes?

Roll on tomorrow

I'm now in possession of thirty-four cookies, into which I put chopped-up Terry's chocolate oranges to add a festive touch. There was a '3 for 2' offer on the chocolate oranges, which I took advantage of, so it looks like Rikki's going to get a small present tomorrow.

While I was baking, I did some cell biology revision, so I don't feel like I've completely wasted a night. I always revise cell biology as opposed to anything else, because I don't understand it at all. One day, I'll get round to doing the same for ecology.

I can feel another early night coming on: not so much because I'm tired, but because it'll make tomorrow come more quickly. I'm kind of hoping that Rikki won't be in, for the purely selfish reason that I won't have to wait around for four hours after my learning levels class. Mind you, if he is in, I'm more likely to get some work done. Well, as he always says, we'll see what happens.

Uncomfortably numb

Today hasn't been good. My lectures have moved slightly past A-level now, so we're onto hybridised orbitals and shit like that, but that doesn't make the content any more interesting. I spent my lunchtime finishing my write-up of the horrible notes on invertebrates and talking to Amy on MSN, then popped down to the garages to see if Rikki was there. He wasn't.

Dejectedly, I went to Sainsbury's to get my baking ingredients, then home. It wasn't until I was on my train that Rikki texted to apologise, saying that he'd had to go home to fetch his suit.

As insane as it sounds, I haven't gone a day without seeing him since early October (I can hear my past self, queen of long-distance relationships, scoffing at me now). My mother is out tonight, so I have to stay here to look after the dogs with only the television, the oven, Doctor Who Magazine, and some revision notes for company.

Sometimes, I hate my life. Feel free to lambast me for being whiny, melodramatic or whatever.

Slight cock-up

I was planning on staying at Rikki's tonight, but he's going to a fancy dinner with the Motor Club alumni, so I'm staying tomorrow instead. This means that baking and Rikki have effectively swapped days, and that I'm having to spend two evenings in a row at home. As much as it pains me to say this, it looks as though I'm going to have to do some work tonight.

My lectures start in ten minutes. Without wanting to sound like a depressive, I have nothing to look forward to today.

"He hums when I adjust the wavelength!"

Many things annoy me. These include, but are not limited to: having a craving for a certain food and not being able to find it, rush-hour trains, small children, and getting home only to realise that dinner isn't going to be served for another hour.

In spite of the fact that I encountered all of these things tonight, I'm in a pretty good mood, which I'm going to put down to waking up next to my boyfriend this morning, and having gotten the post-practical assessment out of the way.

The practical involved recording light absorbance using a spectrophotometer, and washing up a lot of very small containers. Romy and I got oddly attached to the spectrophotometer, called Cecil in our instructions. We make good lab partners in that we get on well and are good at labour division, but bad in that neither of us tends to know what's going on. We just muddle through whatever we're supposed to be doing as best we can.

As far as I can tell, hardly anyone went to lectures this morning. Looks like we've all got our priorities sorted.

It was fine in the end

Rikki solved yesterday's problem nicely by not coming in at all. After my disorganised but not very taxing problem class, I headed to Putney, and Rikki met me off the bus. We went to Sainsbury's, bought nachos to go with the leftover frozen chilli, and walked home in the rain. I was put in charge of carrying a sixteen-pack of loo roll, which I'm sure you can imagine was very fun.

I'm not complaining really. It was a lovely night, as our nights eating dinner whilst watching old-school Doctor Who always are. Rikki didn't realise that we were missing the launch party until about eight o' clock, by which point we were comfortably full and listening to the rain pissing down outside. There wasn't much incentive to leave the flat, so we didn't.

Because we didn't go to sleep until about three in the morning (although I did sleep through The Mighty Boosh on BBC3 at midnight without realising until Rikki woke me up and told me), I wasn't feeling particularly awake when the alarm went off at seven. In fact, I was so tired that I decided not to come in until this afternoon, and here I am. Granted, I have missed two lectures, but one was an easy one on chemical bonds, and the other was some keynote thing which can't be that important, seeing as the last one we had got cancelled and was never rescheduled. I'll download the slides anyway.

I just have to get through this practical, then I can go home.

Too tired to socialise

I've spent nearly my whole lunchtime writing up notes on reptiles and birds, and I have a problem class in twenty minutes. I don't mind too much because biological chemistry, which we've just started, is pretty easy at the moment. Our lectures are just a rehash of A-level Chemistry and Physics and the notes are very good, so I don't need to pay much attention. Sadly, the easy part is countered by a difficult part: PyMol. This molecular modelling program is fiddly and unintuitive, and I'm effectively learning as I go because I can't be bothered to read the instructions. Perhaps I should do that.

Tonight, the UCL women's rugby team are launching their naked calendar. Rikki and I have been invited to the launch party, which takes place in a student pub near UCL and has an 'Anything But Clothes' theme (if I go, I'll wear a bin liner).

I really, really don't want to go. Monday night isn't really the best time to have any sort of party- though, in fairness, I think today was chosen because of the cheap drinks deals on a Monday- and I have no wish to be packed into a pub with several hundred half-clothed people, only about two of whom I actually know. Plus, we'd have to travel all the way to UCL.

I'd much rather go to the union bar for drinks, and then back to Putney for a quiet night in, but I'm staying at Rikki's tonight, so the decision rests on his shoulders.

People are stupid

When I arrived at Putney station this morning, I noticed that there were two trains going to Waterloo (and stopping at exactly the same stations) due to arrive within four minutes of each other. The first train arrived: it was four carriages long, and had so many people in it that you would have thought it was six o' clock on a Monday evening, rather than nearly noon on a Sunday.

Nonetheless, everyone on the platform tried to pile on, and just about made it in. I hung back, as I wasn't in a tearing hurry to get to Waterloo, and could spare another four minutes to get on a hopefully less crowded train.

The next train arrived promptly, and to my delight, I saw that it was eight carriages long and practically empty. As I settled myself in my seat, I pondered the matter. Had the other people on the platform, who had piled into the rammed train, saw that there was another train due to arrive in less than five minutes but been in such a hurry that they took the first one; or did they just not notice at all?

One of my greatest curses is that I overthink things.

Keep the cat free

Yesterday was good, as I'd expected. I took Amy to Imperial so that she could have a look round the mostly empty campus, then we walked to Hyde Park. The Christmas market was full of the expected German stands selling "XXL sausages" and gingerbread hearts, juxtaposed with stands from other countries and theme park rides, most of which I wouldn't say were particularly seasonal. Since when have haunted houses and pirate ships been associated with Christmas?

Seeing Amy again after a month and being able to have a gossip face-to-face was nice. Yes, 'nice' is a wishy-washy word, but that's what it was. She's turning into a right Audiology geek.

"He's got prosthetic ossicles!", she cried excitedly, referring to a patient she saw the other day.

Our walk, fuelled by sausages and German pancakes, took us all the way to Marble Arch. Amy decided to go home early, but had to take the train to mine first because she'd left her car parked outside my house. It was only three o' clock and there wasn't much point in me going home too, so she suggested I go to Rikki's before the Felix dinner.

When I got to his flat, I was greeted by him wearing nothing but a towel and shaving cream on his face: to my delight, he'd shaved off the much-maligned moustache.

"We've got half an hour to work out how to iron", he told me, referring to the fact that his shirt and trousers for the dinner were still lying crumpled in his room. By five o' clock, he'd managed to wrestle the creases and his hair into submission, only to have his hard work negated by the steady drizzle outside. By the time we got to Imperial, the creases were back.

The reception beforehand lasted a bit too long, in my opinion. In a slight contradiction of my previous post, I knocked back three complimentary glasses of Prosecco while we were waiting to go upstairs, and followed this up with three glasses of white wine and two glasses of port over the course of the dinner itself. They were only small glasses, though. I got a bit tispy, nowhere near drunk, and had completely sobered up by the time we left.

As a picture is worth a thousand words, I'm going to tell you what happened over the course of the night using some photos I took. What the photos don't show is that we had melon and Parma ham, duck and tiramisu to eat; and that I was chatted up by a Scottish graduate student who'd had rather too much to drink. I was trying to take a nap towards the end of the night when he decided to come and flirt with me in Rikki's full view. Thankfully, Rikki just found this hilarious.

"Where's your girlfriend?", I asked the drunken Scotsman, remembering that I'd seen them together at the reception.

"She went out with her friends", he replied, not put off touching me up at all.

He was very difficult to get rid of. Anyway, here are the photos.

"Take your beautiful girlfriend home", someone told Rikki.

I'd been tired during the reception at six and it was now significantly later, so I was over-tired and emotional by this point. We took the bus home, didn't get into bed until half past two, and I had to be home by lunchtime today to help my father with the dogs. Weirdly, I felt more lucid when I left than I usually do after spending the night at Rikki's, even though I'd had less sleep than I normally would have had on a Sunday morning.

In conclusion, it hasn't been a bad weekend at all. Alas, unlike last weekend, this one could only last two days.

What was I thinking?

Thank fuck it's today. Amy will be here in an hour, then we have the whole day to wander around gossiping, before going our separate ways again: probably home, in her case, while I'm going to the Felix dinner with Rikki.

I was re-reading the diary I made this time last year, and came to the conclusion that November and December are my prime months for being on a downer (this was not helped last year by the fact that I was sort-of-going-out-with a complete wanker).

As I was saying to Rikki last night before I went to bed, it also made me grateful for what I have now. Things this time last year were going down the toilet, and it wasn't until some months later that I was able to pull them out.

In my defence

I've got the whole evening ahead of me, so I thought I'd provide some reasons as to why I don't really drink.

1. I don't like the taste, hence why I often down drinks "to get rid of them". I also do this to impress people, but the taste is the deciding factor.
2. Back when I was teetotal, my stock reason was "I don't want to lose control". Before I'd ever been drunk, I was worried that I'd do some crazy shit; now I realise that I don't embarrass myself much more than when I'm sober, but I do lose control of my body and end up on the floor. Which I don't much like.
3. What I like even less than the dizziness and general loss of control are the memory blanks the next morning. While some people regard these as the benchmark of a good night, they terrify me slightly (and I'm still kicking myself for all but forgetting Rikki's important confession).
4. Speaking of Rikki's important confession, I hate throwing up. I'd make an excellent bulimic if it wasn't for this aversion. Please don't flame me for saying that, it was a joke.
5. Alcohol has the annoying effect of making me drowsy. Anyone who sees me frequently will vouch for me when I say that I'm not exactly energetic at the best of times, so feeding my tiredness with booze is just asking for trouble.
6. Another side-effect of drinking is that it makes me even hungrier than usual. I eat too much as it is!
7. I have yet to experience a hangover, and have no desire to do so.
8. It costs money. I'd rather spend money on cake, or clothes, or something that I'm actually going to enjoy experiencing.

I feel compelled to point out to my few readers that I have nothing against people who do drink: I have a "do what you like, just don't force me to get involved" mentality. Besides, my boyfriend is a self-confessed alcoholic.

The trick is to keep breathing

Tonight is going to be depressing and work-filled. All I wanted to do was stay in the union bar, watch people have a drink, and go home with a slightly merry Rikki. Sadly, I can't do any of that because my mother is in Paris and my presence is apparently urgently required at home to look after the dogs. Mind you, even if my mother was here, I still wouldn't have been able to stay at Rikki's because I'm seeing Amy tomorrow morning, but at least I would have gone home in a considerably better mood.

It doesn't help that I had to get up at six to renew my monthly Travelcard, realised too late that this was excessively early, and ended up getting the train before my usual one.

My lectures were dull. Somehow, the lecturer managed to make human evolution- surely an interesting topic?- deathly boring. The lecture after that was just a recap of the six previous ones, and was therefore a total waste of time. To give you an idea of how bad it was, one of the workaholic Asian students fell asleep, and several people used the time to read Felix.

As usual, I had lunch in Falmouth, only this time it was cooked by Frank using Adam's food, because Simon was holed up in his room finishing his assessment. I gave them all cookies for their efforts, before going to meet my personal tutor for the first time. He's perfectly nice, but seeing as he's retiring at the end of this year and usually based at Silwood, I've decided to switch tutors. That should get sorted out soon.

After that, I met up with Chris (from the chocolate tasting) to give him a couple of cookies and have a gossip. There are still a couple of cookies left, which I've wrapped in foil for Amy.

I wish I was happier. I wish for a lot of things that are beyond my control.

You clever cookie

It occurred to me shortly after writing that last post that I could take Amy to the Christmas markets on Saturday, as we'd been stuck for something to do. Problem solved.

I'm writing this fairly late because my baking has taken two hours, owing to the piddly size of our oven. No mutant cookies emerged, but three disintegrated when I tried to lift them off the baking tray, so I ate them to cover up my mistake. I'm currently trying to persuade Chris from the chocolate tasting to come to the SAF tomorrow to help me eat the others.

My tutorial this afternoon wasn't so bad, but I was slightly disappointed to see that I'd only gotten 52 for my essay on worms. Chris- not the chocolate tasting one, the ginger one in my tutorial group- did the same essay and got the same mark, though, so it's not as if I'm doing badly compared to everyone else.

I've spent rather a lot of time in the SAC today. There were three notable incidents:

• I decided to help myself to some cranberry juice out of the fridge (it wasn't mine, but Rikki advocates stealing things from there), only to have something furry come out of the carton when I poured it. It resembled some kind of jellyfish, but it was probably just mould. Naturally, I didn't drink it.
• Rikki decided that my laptop charger and bags constituted a trip hazard, and taped them to the floor. Yes, even the bags.
• A girl came to the reception desk looking for a coat, which she'd left in the cloakroom in October. What she didn't know was that if such things are still unclaimed after two weeks, they are donated to charity. I asked her to describe her coat, and realised that it was the coat I purchased last week. Finders keepers?

Not quite a nightmare

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Rikki had woken me up at one in the morning because he couldn't sleep, and I'd had a horrible dream about the skin on my right leg peeling off. Not just the top layers like with sunburn, but a whole chunk of my epidermis; and to make things worse, there wasn't muscle underneath like you would expect, but white stuff that looked like brains.

My first thought upon waking up wasn't "I'm glad that was a dream because it means my leg is all right", but "I'm glad that was a dream because it means I don't have to go to the hospital"!

I only went in because my lectures at the moment don't have many notes to speak of, merely slides filled with pictures (and even then, the slides I printed off don't match up to the one my lecturers use, for some reason). Even then, I was late to both lectures: the first one because getting Rikki out of bed caused a slight delay, and the second one because I was waiting for Matt to print off his lecture notes. I went back to his room with him between lectures, and he gave me some pizza. I'm definitely not hungry for lunch now.

I was going to go to the Christmas market at Hyde Park later, but I may as well do that tomorrow because I'll be finished by three and said I wouldn't be home to look after the dogs until seven. As it is, I'll go home to do my baking after my tutorial, which finishes at four.

Rikki's not feeling any better than I am. No wonder he was a bit grumpy on the bus this morning.