I'm Cambridge til...

Tomorrow.

I'm nervous but in the best way possible. It's terrifying but it's exactly what I want.

Tomorrow.

I start anew, a new city, new people, new job. If it goes well it'll be my life from now on.

Tomorrow.

A 3 hour car journey, picking up a room key, dinner, unpacking. All so familiar but so all so different.

Tomorrow.

Dear Madam,

You're wonderful, there's no doubting that. We have this beautiful connection that I like to dream is unique but still doubt that it is. The trouble is I see you get on so well with so many people, so although at times I feel like we fit together like no one ever has before when I stop and think about it I suspect that this is just how you make people feel. I need to know your flaws, I need to know why it wouldn't work but mainly I just need to grow up. A few years ago there's no doubt I would have chased this, but now time is more precious, especially the time we've both spent elsewhere.

Maybe one day our worlds will have both come crashing down around us, and we'll have so little left to lose that we can try it. Until then I'm afraid we have to be responsible adults. I'll always treasure you as a friend.

My promises

Just as a reminder to myself here are my promises for between now and exams:

1) Be in the department 9am every weekday
2) No drinking except at socials or on Friday and Saturday night
3) Exercise 5 days a week

If I achieve these I will doubtlessly achieve everything else I want to.

Looking back

Reading through the old posts from years ago I couldn't help but smile. I started this blog for very different reasons but now I like having it just as a record to read myself so I'm going to try and pick it up again. The past is embarrassing, there's no denying that, but some of it is wonderful so I'm going to stick on my old profile with the stupid posts mixed in with some beautiful memories.

I guess the first thing to cover is what's happened since my last post. Still with the same girl, many sleepless nights did follow, and I hope there's many more to come (although sleep has become more of a priority in both our lives). Finals are rapidly approaching at Cambridge and procrastination is still the main reason I come back to this blog.

Materials science student, frisbee player and CLUDO, concert band treasurer. That's how my CV describes me and its fairly accurate. My best friend from last year, JJ, is off in South America and he's sorely missed. Edd and Hannah have filled the gap largely but it's not quite the same. I think I miss living with my best friend the most.

My exciting future has arrived in the form of a DPhil offer from Oxford. If I'm reading this in the future and I didn't end up going because I couldn't be bothered studying I should be kicking myself so focussing on finals is going to be the priority for the next two months. Oxford will be interesting. I'll miss not getting to live with Rachel, a lot, and its doubtlessly by far the biggest decision I've taken in my life so far. Compared to getting married and having children it's small fry though so here's to not worrying about whether I made the right decision too much.

Time to go introspective. I don't feel grown up enough for this. Making decisions like that is big, too big for one person I feel, and yet we all have to do it. I imagine I'm far from unique in this observation, but it's new to me. I've always been a go, go, go. I've always had a plan and never really doubted it. But now, now I'm worried, now I'm scared. I used to feel this way when I was much younger but I hit 16 got some confidence and nailed life for a few years, ignoring my mistakes. I miss being carefree and that being ok, I guess realising that it's not anymore is growing up, but it doesn't feel how I expected it to.

Going home, again

It's five am and I've barely started packing. It seems its always times like these I blog.

I'm still with stunning, smart girl from the blog five months ago and things seem to be going well.
There's a slight issue with her not trusting or believing her feelings, also things have gone fast, but I'm not too worried about either of these things.
She's incredible. She's smart, patient, caring; she'll listen to me even when I won't listen to her. Waking up to her in the morning has become a regular highlight that always brightens my day, oh and the sex is incredible. I love her.

It'll be getting light soon, I've got the curtains open so I can see the dawn, and the birds are singing already.

Work at Cambridge is going well, plenty of it as always. It's still possible that I'll get the 1st I was determined to get this year. I guess its all up to me still and how hard I work for the next couple of months. Right now I'm just looking forward to a day or two off at home and some good old home cooked food.

There's activity stirring on the other side of Cripps, someone else is up early. Time to get back to packing.

Lack of sleep

Here it goes. Stunning girl, smarter than me as well. She's deprived me of two nights sleep and threatens to take many more.
That's just one of quite a few things that are going well this year: a couple of good, close mates, plenty of pub trips, fairly on top of my work, and enjoying both hockey and frisbee.
All in all Cambridge life is going quite well, we'll have to wait and see what happens when I get home.

Hmm

Well that didn't work out too well.

I think I always knew that though, writing the last blog involved blocking out half my head, as does this one to be honest. Telling myself I do/don't want something just because I don't/do have it. Sleeping with your best friend probably isn't the best plan in the world so now it's a steady rebuild.

Anyway back to my quieter than average life at cambridge. Well that's what it's going to be this year, last year's get drunk and party attitude didn't work out great socially so instead going to try taking it slow and getting to know people.

In the meantime I'm single without anyone on the cards so just wait and see what happens.

Coldplay's "The Scientist" is definitely going to be the song of that fortnight of mistakes, at least I didn't tell her I was smarter than her. To be honest she seems to be smarter than me, which is just infuriating as it turns out.

Oh if only I could go back to the start, it was easily the best moment of that relationship.

Summer Love

It's just wonderful when you meet that one person, or rather suddenly realise that person had been in front of you the whole time. Someone you can trust completely, thing's just click and there's that feeling of complete understanding and bewildering mystery, all at the same time.

Just got to remember not to point out too many times that I'm smarter than her, a fact she'll deny even though I have exam results (a 2.1 this year) to back me up.

It's not going to be easy, nothing worth doing ever is, but I'm happy with my results from Cambridge, I have a summer job, and now there's an amazing girl in my life. I really, really hope this lasts.

24 weeks

So this is it. My final exam of the year starts in 45 minutes and then I'll have 3 hours to make all the work I've done this year count. I'll admit I haven't been the most diligent student but this year has taken a lot out of me, by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do. As for the next few hours, well the question guessing is over, just a few more minutes cramming (what I hope will be) useful facts then the same procedure, finding my seat, listening to the examiner's spiel, writing my candidate number on each cover sheet, and hopefully managing to do 3 hours of maths.

I've done four already, two went well, two didn't, but I could have predicted that. As a result this final exam may decide whether my results are a success or a failure. So many of life's decisions are decided by the finest of margins, right now I have 180 minutes to prove that 24 weeks of my life spent here was worthwhile.

Wish me luck.

Time Wasting

Spent the last hour and a quarter reading through my old blogs instead of revising materials. Made me realise that many, many things never change. I think it can be considered by now that Maura and I are officially not talking. I have a date planned with someone who is in the other side of the country for 44 weeks a year so could be a while waiting for that one.

Term's being term, plenty of work that I never seem to want to do, plenty of ambition but still no real drive. Made my first revision timetable of the year today, one hour in and I'm already behind. My to do list is growing longer and longer, and the amount of time to my exams is decreasing rapidly.

It was amusing reading through my old posts, comments off the same two people, and constant apologies to my non-existant readers. It's nice having the record of what I did though, I can see why people keep diaries, even if I am the only person who will ever read it. I wonder what future me would want to know about the present moment. The girl who I've got a date with is called Molly by the way, if you (future me) are still with her you've done well my lad.

Of the things that never change:

Not doing enough revision

Waking up late

Being late for class/lectures

Skipping too many classes/lectures

Feeling down for no real reason occasionally

Feeling happy for no particular reason occasionally

Wanting to have a girlfriend, except when I have one

Spending my evenings flicking through random websites (what did people do with their time before the internet?)

That's a good enough list for now.

Things that do change:

I actually need to do some work right now.

Back in the bubble

So it's back to Cambridge once again, for the dullest term of the year. I'm prepared this time round though so it can't really go any worse than I'm expecting it to. I think my expectations were too high last term, after all it is life in Cambridge, work dominates no matter who you are (possibly excluding the Art Historians who play rugby and have time to go out 5 times a week). But hopefully occasional pub trips and two series of the West Wing will make it bearable. The main thing is just getting down to work I guess, hence the procrastinating on here when I could be doing any number of useful things.

The real upside to this term is how much I enjoyed the Easter holidays and am looking forward to summer. My lack of work is nothing terrible as I'm in the same boat as many others, it's just a case of really getting into it between now and exams. Curiously my best mate from across the hall hasn't reappeared, wondering what's happened to them, if he's not back by Monday I'll start to get seriously worried.

In the meantime I have no interesting observations on life or anything else to make this blog worth reading so it really just me rambling to myself. If anyone else stumbles across it, sorry for wasting your time and hope the next one you find is more exciting.

Tchau for now.

Once more around the block

It seems all the interesting things in life happen late at night, I can't remember the last time something fascinating at noon. It just seems that while the sun is no longer in the sky, deep conversations begin to happen and people just let their guard down a bit. I've had so many good chats on the way back from something that finished quite late and tonight was another one of those. A 5-minute walk home that ended lasting around an hour, and the discovery of a friend I'd almost forgotten I could count on. It's been a nice evening.

There's still a million things flying around my head, many the result of a confrontational conversation about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and many more about a girl I like, which is of course the much more complicated and pressing issue.

I love the fact that there are so many blogs out there that I can rely on mine to remain hidden and hope that everyone I told about it has forgotten. I guess in a way I want my friends to know the things I write but I don't want to tell them then, this is a wonderfully unique way of getting my thoughts out into the world without actually having to say them out loud to anybody.

I think I've resolved my view on God, that just leaves understanding girls to deal with. I manage that as well I might just go down as the cleverest guy in history: disproved God and broke down the invisible language barrier between men and women. I get thinking and I might just manage both in the same night, wish me luck.

It really doesn't take much...

Another term gone, this time it went by in a flash.

I can't pick much out of it for highlights, I got dumped (well sort of), dropped for the biggest hockey game of the year, failed to secure a good set of flatmates for next year, and then told off by my ex-best friend. If I did pick any highlights they would all lie on the same weekend, which wasn't spent in Cambridge. I was at the Newcastle game for the amazing 4-4 tie with Arsenal, had a great night out with my sister and Kirsty, followed by a fun night relaxing with Kirsty and her friend at uni, Saffron, who's kind of fun.

It was a big relief to finally reach the holidays and although my originally good work ethic has dropped off somewhat there is still plenty of time for that to change, also just being able to relax around people I've known for years and who I don't really care what judgements they make of me is nice.

And to be honest things were starting to look up, a nice pair of pub trips on Friday and Saturday night, another completion of Mass Effect, and one series of West Wing down, even a good check-up at the dentist's. I was finally starting to feel good about myself, then, I discover my ex-girlfriends blog through a couple of links that should have died out months ago, and suddenly I'm back on my ass.

One and a half years on

So AS levels went well, A2s did as well. I went to Brazil for 10 weeks, broke up with my girlfriend of 15 months before I went, and most importantly I got into Cambridge University, the best university in the world, according to some sources.

The first term went well enough, few things I've promised to do differently, but on the whole not too bad. The trouble is I have mock exams in 2 days. Now over the last 2 years there's been one exam out of 14 that I got less than 90% on, if I get 70% on this one I'm doing brilliantly, anything over 50% and I'll be happy. It's very strange having to change mindset like that and I know that I'm going to feel like I've done really badly no matter how well I do so just staying positive for the later exams could be interesting.

Well better make the most of these 2 days, hard work here I come. Here's to the next year and a half, cheers.

Day one

I had my final ever biology exam today. :D. I just wish I felt like that. In fact this evening feels a bit dead, despite everything: the wonderful weather we're having; the swim I went for this evening; the promise that soon exams will be over. It doesn't feel like it should. Maybe it's because I found the exam more difficult than I expected, or my girlfriend's blowing me off to play computer games this weekend, who knows.

Anyway as promised here is the beginning of the story of my great adventure, day one of my ride.

So I set off up the hill after the others. Most of them had left about 5 minutes before, with only John waiting for me to get my helmet, gloves and, of course, shades on. I managed to beat John up the first hill, which would have felt impressive if he wasn't in his fifties. I powered on nevertheless and caught up with a couple of the others at the next stop point, 5 miles down the road. There I pulled over for a drink as John went straight past, enjoying the downhill that the minibus had decided to stop halfway down, I wish they'd stopped at the top of hills more often.

Only David, the vicar from St Cleopas, the church I was helping raise money for, was with me when I left the first stop. He was struggling though, after a hard morning's ride that I missed, and told me to go on ahead to make sure I kept up with the others as he suspected he would be ending the day with a ride in the minibus. I wasn't too keen on the idea but didn't want to be left behind or hold the others up on the first day so pressed on. David kept up for a while but by the next stop was a few minutes behind me.

At the next stop I caught Gary and John as they were recovering from the huge hill we'd just been over. Only Tom remained out of my sight now, somewhere miles down the road. Pulling back onto the road I was just behind Gary but decided to overtake him at the top of yet another hill and raced down ahead in search of Tom.

I was feeling pretty good at this stage, my legs were hurting with the effort but nothing I hadn't expected and my fears of not being able to keep pace had been dispached, even if I did wonder if I could keep it up after my advantage of being 30 miles fresher wore off.

Over the next few hills the road was clear ahead of me, I never lost sight of Gary and John behind me for more than 30 seconds after each peak, but I kept a good distance and pace up. It must have been another 5 or so miles down the road before I first caught sight of Tom's fluorescent jersey just disappearing over yet another hill crest. I kept hammering on and managed to keep about a minute and a half behind him, which is actually quite a long distance on a bike, until he stopped to make sure we all went the right direction.

As you can probably tell up to this point I'd been going for the competitive angle to keep myself going, it was quite entertaining and kept my mind occupied, which is kind of necessary when all your body is doing is pushing your feet round in circles. I really don't know why I enjoy cycling so much thinking about it, I guess it's not so much about what you're doing but more what's around you that makes it what it is. Without the air rushing past, and the scenery, I guess it'd be actually quite boring. No wonder I don't like exercise bikes.

Anyway, enough abstract ranting, after Tom stopped to point us in the right direction we stuck together, minus David who was being accompanied by the minibus. So my competitive streak had to subside and I settled down into a rhythm with the others. Soon the hills flattened out as well as we headed into the Eden valley. That's not some crazy metaphor for how beautiful it was or anything, it was just the valley of the River Eden. We stopped for a while and stood on one of the few remaining parts of Hadrian's wall. John lay down which was a mistake. It took him 5 minutes to get up again.

We were waiting for the minubus but it was still a few miles back encouraging David along so we headed down to the river and across to the next town. It sounds a lot easier than it was. Hadrian's wall is quite high in parts and the River Eden is pretty low so heading down the hill was great fun, except for the blind corners at 30 odd miles an hour which were an ickle bit scary, but the hill on the other side was the biggest and steepest we'd had all day. We made it though, eventually, and stopped in the centre of Brampton for the bus to arrive.

It had been a beautiful afternoon but the clouds were starting to gather as the minibus pulled up, informing us that David was still more than 5 miles behind us and we should just go on and supplying us with sandwiches and drinks. We carried on down towards the church we were staying at, just a few miles down the A69, but of course there was time for one last detour, up a hill. For the rest of the weekend we would spend quite a lot of time finding ways around the A roads but this was the first one we'd come across today. We decided to head up through the village of Hayton so that we weren't holding up the lorries.

We reached a turning for Hayton quite quickly, only a mile down the road, unfortunately it was one to early and we took it anyway. It took us up over another hill and down into Hayton. We had only been 2 miles away from the end of the days ride, this pushed it up to 4 or 5 but we reached it eventually, by which time I just wanted to collapse.

We unloaded the minibus and David turned up about 20 minutes later, having made some serious ground up while we were stopped in Brampton. The minibus had gone looking for him, but had gone the wrong way and returned 10 minutes after his arrival. We put the lasagne that we had been given for tea in the oven then the curate of the church we were staying in turned up and offered us showers at his place. These were galdly accepted and an hour later after all 5 cyclists and the 2 drivers had had a shower we returned to a beautifully cooked lasange with boiled potatoes and garlic bread.

After tea we unpacked our blow-up beds of various sizes: from John's huge double mattress that was about 2 foot high and about 6 foot wide to Tom's blow up roll matt that was about an inch deep, then pumped them up using Graham's (one of the drivers) electric pump, well Tom blew his up. We then had a worryingly competitive game of Uno, Tom got really into it, and I taught the oldies what decent music sounded like before we all curled up into our beds around half past ten. That was the quickest I've fallen asleep in years, despite Graham's snoring.

2 weeks

I've just realised how long it's been since I last did a blog, I would blame exam pressure and how busy my life is at the moment, but that would be a load of rubbish. The fact is I'm on exam leave and making the most of my days off mainly by sitting around and doing... nothing really. At least by leaving it 2 weeks I should have some interesting things to say, that's if I can remember anything.

Between completing several games of Civilisation 4 I have managed to find time to revise for and sit a couple of exams, maths and physics. Physics was 6 days ago and was an interesting experience. I had to guess my way through it, more than usual, but everybody else said it was impossible so I still have hope. Maths, last friday, ran as smoothly as every maths exam seem to does, lucky for some hey :P.

I have managed to have a life outside of exams as well. I was at a party about ten days ago with quite a lot of people I don't know. I survived by not getting too drunk while most other people seemed to be drinking until they no longer could and chatting to the more sober ones. I had a nice walk round Aughton while on my way home via 4 other people's houses and on the whole it was quite a fun night.

The next day I played hockey on a hangover for the first time, which was made more interesting by me playing outfield for the first time in 3 years. It was great fun though, even if we did come 5th out of 6, and at the awards evening afterwards I got to stuff myself with pizza and laugh as my captain got really quite drunk.

Then there was my first week of real exams as mentioned above. The fun really started after my maths exam. Ok so some people are going to call me crazy for thinking that this weekend was fun, but it really was. Starts off straight after my exam, after a quick run round college checking what other people thought of the exam, reassuring them they'd done fine etc. etc., I get in the car and my dad drives us up to carlisle.

We stop twice on the way so my dad can pick up his cups of coffee and I can get some food down me before the hard day ahead. Eventually we left the M6 near Carlisle and headed along the road that runs along side Hadrian's Wall. It started off hilly, then got worse. I got more and more anxious as we drove along the road, losing my stomach every couple of minutes as we went over another crest, and getting especially worried as the road took a definate downhill direction. This was going to be an interesting day.

Eventually about 20 miles along the road we met the group of cyclists we had been looking for. I unloaded my bike from the back of the car, put my helmet, shades and gloves on and followed the cyclists up the hill while my dad unloaded my stuff from the car into the minibus that was our support vehicle for the weekend.

I'm going to have to break the rest up into individual entries for each day, otherwise this is going to go on for page after page, and you'll get bored quite quickly so watch this space.





It didn't do much did it. :P

Lol

Some people just aren't cut out for what they do.

WWJKD (What would James Kirk Do?)

It's been a good day, it's been a good week.

After the doss that is general studies on monday I spent a very enjoyable tuesday at Maura's. Wednesday was spent "revising", I'm not quite sure what happened to it, and today was just great.

I got woken up ridiculously early by my parents again, they're determined that I will start working before 9, and refuse to listen to my arguements that that's earlier than college starts. I did do some work but soon inspiration faded and I started off on the hour long journey to Kirsty's a bit early. After stopping by Morrison's to buy a 50p pack of Jaffa Cakes (bargain) I got the bus without hassel and was only slightly later than I had guessed arriving at Kirsty's.

We spent an hour or so talking, catching up with gossip since I'd not been in college for a whole 3 days, we set off for Wigan. McDonald's was the first port of call where we met up with the others and got lunch. Double cheeseburger and a Big Mac meal, that's what I'm talking about! Then headed off to the cinema via Asda to get more snacks.

Star Trek was awesome, I know I sound like such a geek saying that but it was fantastic in my opinion. After that we all headed home. I got back on my bus just before it started to rain. It still hasn't stopped.

Now normally rain is no big deal but I had a half hour walk from bus stop to my home ahead of me. At some point I decided just screw it I'll get wet, and I did. But there was something brilliant about deciding just screw it. My whole attitude changed, I couldn't give a damn about anything, at all. The best thing was nothing could worsen my mood, which would have probably seemed terrible to anyone I bumped into, just because I didn't care. I was prepared to ignore anything I didn't like, or couldn't be bothered dealing with, and just get on with the things I did like. I kinda hope it sticks.

Float on

I had my first serious revision session today for my summer AS modules, it's maybe a bit late to get started since my first exam is monday (it's general studies though and that so doesn't count) but better late than never.

I think I might actually be going crazy, I'm kinda enjoying it. All my notes are in very pretty colours and my music gets gradually louder as I turn it up when yet another amazing song comes on. However I still can't keep at it for very long, my brain just runs out of energy to put the words on the page. I got about an hour done.

Speaking of lack of energy, I've cycled to college 5 times now. It's about 14 miles each way according to google maps, takes me between an hour and 1 hour 15 minutes. The first time I got a little bit lost on the way, but cleverly left myself plenty of time anticipating such problems. By about the third attempt I'd found my final route.

The most recent journey went less smoothly however. I was on my way up to bed, still unsure whether to cycle the next day or not, and as I was saying goodnight to my parents (like a good little boy :-P) I spotted the weather forcast on tv. I waited for a couple of minutes to see how the next day was going to pan out before heading up to bed. The prediction was dry but windy. I hate wind when I'm cycling, so I decided that if it looked as bad as predicted in the morning I'd get the bus.

I woke up the next day and it was as calm as I am before a general studies exam (ridiculously). So I packed my rucksack, unchained my bike, and headed off. I made it to college in record time, one hour dead, so had plenty of time for my shower before physics despite setting off ten minutes late. Or I would have had if the changing rooms had been open. As it turned out I ended up making do with a spray of deodorant and getting changed in the toilets.

Turns out the weather forcast isn't always wrong, and the wind picked up during the day. I wasn't too worried. From my previous experiences it hindered on the way there and helped on the way home. That wasn't the case that day though.

I got out of biology 10 minutes early and was out the college car park before the queue formed by the exit. I made it up the mahussive hill not far from college and was speeding down the far side. Well I should have been. Even with the steep slope that typically took me 10 minutes on the way there and 2 minutes on the way home, I was going suprising slowly. The air was whistling through my ears, but my wheels were barely moving.

Ahh.

It was going to be a long ride home.

By the time I'd made it through Skem I was ready to throw my bike on a bus and take the easy way home. Unfortunately there were none. By the time I got to Long Lane, the last stretch before I reach home, I was pratically swearing at the wind and seriously considering sitting in a ditch by the road and waiting for the wind to drop.

One hour 20 minutes I made it in, normally the home journey's quicker since it's mainly downhill. I lost the race against the bus, which I've actually won once, by miles, literally.

Since then it's been a good weekend though. I've finished all my AS lessons, I'll never have to pay attention in Biology EVER again, had a very enjoyable evening last night and a fun day of procrastination today. As always the real work will start tomorrow. I wish.

It's been one of those days

I woke up this morning, that was my first mistake. I don't know where the weekend disappeared to, it took me a few moments to work out that it was Monday and another couple of moments to realise how crap that fact was. But I dutifully rolled out of bed and opened my curtain so I could see the glorious sunshine that we had been having ever since I got back from Peru. It had disappeared, the sky was as grey as an elephant's backside and the typical British drizzle had returned.

It was one of those mornings when I should have rushed through everything to get out the door as quick as possible, but couldn't be bothered, so ended up running for the bus through the rain. I made it, just.

The bus journey took forever, yet we still managed to get in ridiculously early. Both Biology and Physics dragged but fortunately I got sent out of maths for being a genius, whoop :). Other than that its been a long and tiring day. I'm not even looking forward to going home thanks to the huge pile of homework I couldn't be bothered doing at the weekend.

On the bright side the sun is starting to shine, and tomorrow's new day, I just wish it would be here already.