Deadlines

Well, the hand-in date for my project is today at 4pm.

But I handed mine in yesterday.

It definitely isn't the best piece of work I've ever done, but by yesterday afternoon I knew that 1.) I was never going to understand it more than I already did in 24hours 2.) if I kept it with me, I would just keep picking at it and probably make it worse, I mean, I'm absolutely terrible with scabs and projects not handed in are in the same vein. So I printed it off, which included about ten minutes fixing one particular chart up by hand because it wouldn't print right, getting it bound, undertaking the tedious task of filling out two cover sheets for each of my copies and then finally handing the thing in. Returning home I handed in my 'electronic copy' (which apparently they use to check you ain't plagiarised) and that was it. Since yesterday afternoon I've been sat here thinking 'oh I wonder if I did this...' then telling myself off for it. There's nothing I can do about it now, so why worry?

I think some small part of me feels bad for not being as religious with its synthesis as everyone else has been. It will reflect in my mark, this I know. But another part of me felt as though I expended all my time and energy on the data collection part of the project, while everyone else was sitting in a lab or whatever, I was lugging camera and tripod, chasing after a flock of wild birds. I hope I get effort marks. Also, and this may sound like an excuse but it's true; I struggle to be diligent at something I know I'm no good at. Rather than being a centre that fosters learning and independent exploration of a given subject, uni has made me feel inferior in every conceivable way. All I really got was a three year course on how to be a pedantic twat and question everything that's put in front of me. I know that I am not closed off to learning; I still pick up chord sequences on the guitar for a song I want to learn how to play, I collect scattered pieces of knowledge I put forth in my creative writing. I have an excellent memory for trivia but a terrible one for 'non-vocal communication'.

But it's over with now. It's a month until my exams and that's another kettle of fish I'll boil when the time is right. Hooray!

Conclusion

Well, I think I've finally come to my conclusion about university.


I hate it here.

I absolutely, utterly, sodding hate it here.

Why is it when I look on Facebook, everyone has photos taken of them depicting happy, lots of friends, laughing, joking... etc. I have 9 photos of me. 9.

Ok, I shouldn't be using a website to judge the state of my life, but it isn't just that. Sure, I have friends, but they're not very good friends. They're the people I hang out with because otherwise, I would be on my own. Conversation revolves around them, and sure it's probably because I ask them about their lives, their weekends, whatever else they get up to. But have they once asked after me? No. Do they care about me? I don't feel cared about.

I don't know what I've done wrong; I've been social, I've done everything I can to join in with things and make the effort. Nobody seems to care. I'm stuck here, away from the people I care about most - family, friends back home.

I can't be myself here - the minute I start behaving "normally" I get odd looks and annoyed glances. I've become as introverted as I was in Highschool.

Also, I hate this stupid year of stuff I don't even care about. I'm paying to redo my A-levels. Whoo, fucking, hoo. Ok, I like Biology, but I wanted to progress. I didn't want to sit there for 50 minutes learning about the sodding lac operon. How the chuff is it relevent to zoology? Search me.

I feel like I'm wasting my time. I'm miserable 80% of my time here. I'm in tears for about 60% of that. Everyone at home seems to be so cold towards me I wonder what the heck I've done wrong. It's like I really don't have anything to live for anymore.

Cambridge

Last week was reading week here at Manchester University, which means that we have a week free of lectures to (not surprisingly) read. Of course, with time off there was also one extra thing I wanted to do; not having seen Finn for around six weeks was tough, and we both came to the conclusion it was high time to see each other.

Of course, Finn was still in the middle of his term (which was an 'oh noes!' length of 8 weeks, but they work about ten times as hard as we do - imagine having a school week compressed into a day, and having to go in on a Saturday. Nightmare situation.), but that didn't really matter to me. (And I hope it didn't matter to him either).

Anyway, the train journey down was uneventful save for one change. I went from Manchester - Doncaster - Peterborough, then I should have finally gone on to Cambridge. But upon arriving at Peterborough, I found my train had been cancelled and there wasn't one for around another hour, with no guarantee it was going to run. I think some sort of guardian angel was smiling down at me that day since I somehow bumped into a group of sensible twenty-something bordering 30 year olds who lived in Cambridge, and also happened to be going the same way. I learnt that I could get a train to Ely and then to Cambridge, which would have me arriving at Cambridge station earlier than waiting for the next train.

After Finn picked me up from the station, I got the tour around his college (st.Catharine's) and once he'd finished his work I got taken to the bar, where I met Ruud, one of Finn's friends from the Czech Republic. One thing I noticed was how all of Finn's friends seem really warm and friendly - and I began drawing parallels to how I don't really have it the same way back home. At first, I felt some what of an outsider to this strange, courteous place, where people actually cared what I had to say for myself. But I soon settled in and began to feel a bit more relaxed around everyone - although Finn was probably the garnering factor in all that.

And of course, getting to meet his new friends wasn't a patch on actually being able to spend time with him. I can't express just how well I was looked after while I was there; taken out for dinner, someone making sure I was alright being left on my own for odd periods etc... It didn't matter if we were sitting in his room both working, or in one of his many lectures - just being -with- him made everything seem alright again. I must admit up to that point I had been feeling pretty isolated and depressed about living in Manchester, but the week completely relaxed and resettled me, and thanks to Finn I feel a million times better about everything. True, I'm snowed under with work that's been piled on since I came back, and I have a lot of stuff to sort out - but because I've seen him I can cope with it.

In retrospect, the week wasn't long enough; just to have a few more days to get used to the fact I was going to be jolted back to my little reality would have been nice. Our goodbyes were too short because I had to jump on the train as it was leaving, and since then I've felt oddly alone again - like I'm missing an arm almost. It's also odd to not have the comforting presence of your boyfriend sleeping behind you anymore, but I'll survive.

I only have to wait another 5 weeks.

Conscience

For those people who read this, I'm now feeling much much better. Tired, snowed under with work that I can't be arsed to do right now, but better. Today I'm going to tell you about something that happened to me as I was walking home today.

Yes, I've decided that while the weather's still nice, I shall indeed walk the mile or whatever into university every day, and walk home again. It's exercise, the route's fairly nice if you go through the park, it's busy so it's safe(ish), and it saves me money. I get up no earlier to do it anyway, and I'm enjoying it so far.

Anyway. Today I was walking home 'on my own' because the other zoologists who live in Owen's Park had a few things to patch up, and I wanted to go because I hate faffing around and wasting time when there's places I want to go. As I was going through rusholme I paid little attention to the man dressed in the expensive dolce clothing, talking on his rather flashy mobile phone. That was until a crisp £20 note fell out of his pocket directly onto the pavement infront of me.

I stopped, I picked it up. I began thinking about what I could spend with this £20; it was esentially one or two weeks budget, I could buy that book I needed without chipping into my savings, I could buy food, warm clothes... Looking briefly back at the man I saw a wadge of notes sticking out of his pocket. He wouldn't miss £20...

But no, I caught up with him and after handing the note back to him, pointed out that perhaps he shouldn't keep so much money in his pocket, especially walking through an area like that where thieves and muggers operate. He briefly thanked me for my help and checked the road behind him in a momentary panic - I reassured him that this was the only note he'd dropped.

*sigh* Sometimes I wish I didn't have a conscience.

Fresher's flu

URGH.

I feel like death.

One, I still haven't recovered from Karate - my arm, neck and rib muscles are so stiff it makes me feel like an old person. It hurts to cough, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to walk, it hurts just sitting here not doing anything. On top of this I have a fever, I feel drowsy from the pain meds (which aren't working), I have this occasionally really runny nose. I have a banging headache. I dragged myself into lectures, and I dragged myself round town with Cat. (Who is actually like... so riddled with medical problems my little bout of 'cold' isn't even worth mentioning really)

I'm supposed to be going out tomorrow night. I'm so ill it isn't even funny. Nobody else understands proper sympathy, so I'm ranting in this blog. xD

On another note, I'll probably put all my HP fanart I draw on a whim up in this blog. I don't think it's something I want to get associated with on DeviantART

Return to the way of the open hand

I decided, as it's generally frowned upon if you don't do some sort of sport at university, that I would pick karate back up. The trouble was, as I looked around the various sports groups, the only type of karate they did was shotokan. Shotokan is one of the strictest forms of karate; I learnt freestyle, which is a mixture of traditional karate, ju-jitsu (wrestling), kendo, and general self-defence.

The differences between my style and the style I was about to begin learning became apparent at the beginning of the lesson. As he told us to form lines, I wandered over to a spot at the front, only to be approached by a brown belt who quietly told me I should move to stand over with the black belts. Ok, you may have thought that forming lines according to belt rank was a bit of a no brainer, but in my club it was ok if you just stood anywhere. Generally the rule of thumb was that the senior belts would form a line at the back (black, brown and purple) and the intermediate belts and beginner belts would go to the front. But here we formed strict lines with black belts at the left of the hall, decending in rank to the right.

Another thing; it was all in frikkin' Japanese. So after we had warmed up (my lazy muscles complaining rather loudly as I stretched them for the first time in 2 years), he was asking the black belts to do twice the amount of work than the other belts, but he was asking us to perform moves I knew, but couldn't understand. I was alright, copying other people and thankfully he didn't berate me on my technique (he stopped another 'new' blackbelt; one from shotokan apparently, and one who hadn't, like stopped training like I had) and told her the way she blocked was incorrect.

Anyway, I had fun and I'll definately go back. I'll perhaps join in the beginner's class until I find my feet though. I knew what to do, it was just hard understanding what was being asked.


(Lol, this post was interrupted by a fire alarm. Someone had burnt their toast)

The Zoo Crew

Haha yes, that's what Cat dubbed the group of us that have all seemed to band together. I think she meant the term to encompass all the students who have taken zoology, but I can't see all 27 or so of us getting together every day; there were about ten of us I can envision hanging out on a regular basis.

Lectures started today, I had my first 'physiology' and 'genes and evolution' lectures. Most of it was stuff I'd already covered in A-level, so it wasn't too taxing. Didn't stop me from taking notes though. My work finishing at 2, after finishing off a few things (like collecting a rape alarm, it was free), I headed back to try off and warm up; having been so kindly splashed by a passing car on my way to the roscoe building that morning.

At some point, I will write up my lectures notes, most probably tonight. I know I probably don't need to seeing as once I get hold of my biology notes, they'll suffice. But it's good to get into the habit isn't it?

Also, totally -not- looking forward to the 3hr lab sessions I'm going to have to endure every friday D:

Free trips

Wednesday and Thursday this week were free trip days organised by the zoology department at Manchester. Man, free trips definately signal awesome department.

Wednesday saw us being taken to Chester Zoo. I've always loved the zoo - least of all because it's a chance to see all those animals I wouldn't ever see; I've barely gone anywhere more exotic than Greece (awesome as it was). Dissapointingly, I never ever see any civets* at the zoo, definately my favourite animal if I had to choose. But I did see a handful of others that I still really like. I guess I'm a little like Finn in the way that, when I see an animal, my mind starts going about how they feed, what they're related to, how they evolved...etc. But yes, firm favourites were the flamingoes, the drowning rhino (joking, she was taking a mud bath), the bat cave (I love bats), and surprisingly, the orangutan called Emma who came to see what we were all doing.

Chester zoo has recently had a new orangutan enclosure, which I highly recommend going to see. It's a vast improvement on the old one - which was little more than a dingy hangar and a little island with a few sad looking climbing frames. Now, you find yourself walking up a sloping track, to enter the building and look -down- into the enclosures. Ropes hang from the ceiling, grass and plants cover the floor, and trees are dotted around. At the far end there is a platform which obviously gives the orangs somewhere 'safe' to sleep. (Orangs build nests in trees for the night; they won't sleep on the ground). Now, this is all well and good, but when one orang swung up on the ropes to perch precariously at the viewing window (with a 20ft or more drop below her) , just to see what this one girl was doing on her phone... well it was something special really.

http://www.worldwander.com/southafrica/civet.jpg

Conversely the aquarium was somewhat of a let down after having experienced that. But nevertheless I still had a good time; my faveourite parts of the day had to be
1) watching the sea horses - anything hippocampus is so amazing
2) that catfish (yes, the one which was larger than my armspan)
3) the underwater tunnel where you could get up close to sharks

and at the top - the ray pool. Rays are so nice to stroke, they're like wet velvet almost. As soon as I walked over to their tank they started poking their noses out and swimming over to see me. And this got me thinking; did they do this in the wild, or did they actually want the attention like a cat or dog? The latter thought I dismissed - after all, they are only fish. They don't have much in the way of frontal lobes, not exceedingly intelligent imo to 'want' attention. But I asked the man on duty and he said that they actually DO enjoy a backscratch.

Word to the wise; if you're stroking a ray DO NOT stroke them underneath. If your finger happens to go into their mouth, the suction is so great you'll free your finger to find it stripped to the bone. No joking. No exaggerating.


--

1. Do you like looking at stars?

Love looking at stars. It never ceases to amaze me when you look up on a clear night and the expanse of the sky stretches 360 degrees around you in this gargantuan dome, with pinprick stars glinting - I love finding constellations I know. It's sort of a small obsession with me I guess, no prizes to who I got it from


2. Who do you say "I love you" to?

My Dad, Mum, Sister and Finn


3. Did you say "good night!" to anyone last night?

Yup - mum


4. When is the last time you felt blue?

Kinda when I was missing Finn, he went on holiday for a long, long time.


5. Tell us one of your dreams:

Haha, I had a HP dream the other night. I was a death eater, and I stood by and watched Lucius Malfoy being crucio'd. And I really wanted to help him, but of course I couldn't because I'd get into trouble. =/

Last day

Before I go to uni S:

Today's been filled with washing, packing, ripping (music onto the laptop), eating (pancakes...mmm) checking (the list)... urgh.

I just want to -go- I don't want all this hassle xD

Results :D

AACC

A in Biology and Chemistry, C in physics (2 marks of a B). C in General Cruddies.

I'm going to Manchester :D!