Fuck, I'm tired. Blog tomorrow.

Monday
Told you I'd be back.

I spent my morning in a nervous panic as I knew I was getting exam results today. Turns out I totally passed them all and that means I get to carry on university. I am pretty ecstatic about this.

I spent several days in Exeter from Thursday to Saturday and had a damn good time. I drank and ate too much and got too much sun and not enough sleep. Saturday I came home early on the train to play cricket. I felt like death which was not fun but I played pretty good. I got hit on my ring finger by the ball at one point and it hurt like a motherfucker. My finger swelled up to an improbable size which was cool though. Here it is today after the swelling has gone down a bit. Still quite fat and bendy though:

In other news I went to the Olympics yesterday to see the rowing. It involved getting up super early which sucked but it was totally worth it. I was always looking forward to it, but as I am not at all into rowing, I didn't think it would be that great to watch. Turns out I was wrong, it was fantastic. There was thirty thousand people there so the atmosphere was awesome and the races were exciting. My favourite part was when there was a rower from Niger who had only been rowing for 3 months and had been allowed specially to compete as Niger don't have many athletes. He was so much worse than everyone else but the crowd loved him and he got the most support by miles. They interviewed him after and he was so happy and smiley and it was just lovely.

I enjoyed the opening ceremony so much. People were all mad about the Olympics but from everything I've seen so far, I would say we are bossing it.

Here's a semi-Olympic themed comic for you.

 See you soon.

Long time no see...

Seems I forgot to blog this month.

Not a lot has happened. Just been working a lot, but theres no change there. Found out I'm being kept on for another year to do the NVQ Level 3 in Housing, so that's good. 

I feel I should have seen people a lot more than I have, but I just get so tired and being tired at work is no fun. I hope you're all well. Will we need to give blood soon, and get other people to come with too! No putting it off this time. 

Saw The Dark Knight Rises on Wednesday with Jon, it was so good!! I think it was a great end to the trilogy. Talking about awesome films, Spiderman was amazing too. Not as good as Batman though.

Did you all see the opening ceremony for the Olympics?! It was great, all of it was just WOW. I'm not sure how the rest of the world will feel about it, it was definitely very eccentric and very British. Danny Boyle did a good job. 

What Olympic event will you guys be watching? I think I will try and catch the cycling in the velodrome, gymnastics is always great and the track athletics. I'm not really a big fan of sports but I usually get into it when something like the Olympics is on.

Juliet how are you, are you still alive?? I feel like I haven't heard from you in forever! And Josh, how are you too?

I hope the rest of you are having fun in Exeter, I think the rest of you are there.

Here's a funny picture that I seem to have acquired somewhere.

Holy dicks, I am free.

I had exams this week, I don't know how they went; maybe ok, maybe bad. I do not want to think about them any more.

On Thursday I went to the Savoy and drank far more than my 2 months sober body should have. I think we went to Groove, I think I danced, I know I fell over. On Friday morning I felt terrible. It was awesome.

I played cricket on Saturday and it was such a glorious day and we played at such a nice pitch and everything was beautiful. We won by miles and I scored lots of runs and then we had a barbecue. Again, it was awesome.

I have been looking forward to free time to so that I can read books again. The thing is I have 3 or 4 books I started over the last few months and then never got around to finishing. Now I can't remember what's going on in any of them but can't be bothered to re read the starts of them. Maybe I should just start another one.

I'm excited to go to Kerry's later this week. I have to be home on Saturday to go to the Olympics on Sunday but that's OK, still 2 nights of Exeter fun times.

I have the house to myself until early tomorrow evening if anyone wants to come over and hang out in the garden and maybe go for a walk in the countryside.

See you soon!

Stealing Friday in Thursday's name

The last two weeks have been incredibly hectic. Ma famíle came to visit last Thursday through to Sunday with my sister staying in my toom. and then on Monday, Lily got here and literally just left.  Now on Monday (I think it's Monday) all the third years are coming down for their graduation and I knew quite a few of them so two guys are crashing in my room.  It's good seeing people, but I just need some time to myself now, after all my moaning about the isolation of Penryn the last time I blogged I seem to be eating my words.  Just a room to myself would be nice, but I have the next couple of days before the next visitation.

Went to work stupidly hungover on Tuesday and now my bosses are really funny with me, but I've stopped caring.  I only see them for 4-6 hours at a time and we don't get much of a chance to speak so I'm just going to carry on pretending they don't exist.

I hear trees was super awesome.  But like Juliet said, all the cool kids missed it this year.  Did you guys see The Futureheads A Capella? I really like how the pictures of your gazebo thing start off really tidy and it looks like you're all on a pleasant camping holiday and as you flick through the albums it gets dirtier and dirtier and the place fills up with beer cans and waste.  That's how trees should be done, you've made me proud.

Here's a song for you

OH MY GOD! Sarah just got back from work and she bought loads of free pasties!!! YUS!

I'd love to stay and chat but I have to go and gorge on pasties, plus the tide goes out soon and I feel like goin' fishin'.

Don't worry, Will. All the coolest kids missed Trees this year.

Thursday I saw Electrick Children with Pete for FREE (yay Slackers Club) and it was fantastic.

On Friday I had a curry at Brogan and Amanda's new flat, then went to the pub with Faye, Sam and Ewan.

Saturday I met everyone for lunch at Teviot, then sat in the Meadows - because IT WAS SUNNY.

Sunday I played badminton with Pete, Gav and Charlotte, then had a dinner party with them + Faye, in which I cooked the bestest food, and managed to get an unholy level of drunk. Everyone but Faye left at about midnight and the two of us then stayed up till 6am getting slaughtered whilst dancing badly and singing too loudly to the likes of Moulin Rouge / Madonna / George Michael etc. When she left I decided to finish what was left of the alcohol and then vomited. Lots.

Monday I got up, fully intending to go to work. Ended up going to the other flat to thieve pain killers then passed out in Pete's bed. Was woken up by a topless Pete walking into the room and screaming. Entirely missed work, spent the evening with John, Charlotte and Pete watching Community and vomiting.

Somehow my hangover carried on into Tuesday, where I went to work and broke everything. Took a long lunch and afterwards managed to fix most of the things. But thank fuck my supervisor is on holiday this week.

Afterwards I met Charlotte, Pete and Gav plus Scott and Fraser (who are over from Glasgow) at the pub and had a lovely time.

I have yet to clean the flat since the dinner party. I have no plates and no cutlery, but an astounding number of empty wine bottles.

And I have finally registered for my third year modules. Hoping that it's not too late, despite being two months past the deadline.

Went for:

First semester: Pharmacology / Molecular Genetics / Evolutionary and Ecological Genetics

Second semester: Genomes and Genomics / Brain and Behaviour / Developmental Biology

Fingers crossed they actually let me take them.


Am actually missing home a lot right now.
It's lovely up here, and work is good. But making plans is really frustrating.
Gav and Charlotte tend to work evening shifts, so by the time I get home they've gone to work. And despite the fact that Pete is doing nothing he is irritatingly difficult to get hold of.
I want my flatmates back. Or I want to be in Swindon. Either would be nice, please, thanks.
I'm sick of sitting in my flat on my own.

So I missed trees and that was pretty shitballs. I hope everyone that went had a good time though!

I'm in my house in Bristol at the moment doing last minute revision for the 2 exams I have tomorrow.

I do not feel prepared. I'm going to drink coffee and revise some more now in an attempt to feel more confident by tomorrow morning.

I'm scared.

Love you.

Today I dissected the spinal cord out of a mouse.

All for a good cause. I swears.

I have learnt that science is mostly about repetition.
But I still enjoy it.

My supervisor is away all next week, so I'm gonna attempt to make some science bros whilst he's away.
I'm on smiling terms with a few people, chatting terms with a few others.
One of the guys runs the Pharmacology honours course at Edinburgh Uni, he's currently testing the electro-physiological properties of nerves grown from stem cells. He showed me his rig and all, pretty damn awesome.
Trying not to be swayed into Pharmacology. Trying to decide between Genetics and Neuroscience is hard enough without adding another subject into the mix.
Haven't picked my third year modules yet. Might get on that actually. Supposed to have registered for them about a month ago.

Spent the weekend in Aberfoyle with Pete and his mum. The weather was awful so only managed one brief walk, but watched lots of tennis.
And just saying, the men's doubles final was adorable! It's sad that no one seems to care. WILD CARD ENTRANTS. RANKED IN THE HUNDREDS. WON A WIMBLEDON TROPHY!!
Everyone keeps going on about having a brit in the finals, and one went ahead and won the doubles and no one noticed.

Listened to a lot of Mountain Goats today.
I used to think they were a one-trick-pony, but I've managed to look past my overwhelming love for No Children and listen to some of their other songs, and they sure do have some lovely albums.

Oh, and I finished all of Grey's Anatomy. Need a new series. Recommendations?

I will totally shave my head

If Kate lets me which, lets face it, she probably wont.

HELLO HOW IS EVERYONE? I'm feeling fiiiiine, off to London today to sort out giving my house back to the landlady

We had the last performance of Swindon the opera last night and, you know what guys, I aint even embarassed about it, we sold out every show, people laughed and clapped and the music/ story was good. I'm very proud of it all. Will came to see it with Joanne and Emma and Mima and Kate also showed up at other performances and it was really nice. The afterparty was very loud and raucous and I had a great time with the rest of the cast.

Apart from STO I havn't really been up to much to be honest, just chilling out in Swindon and having a merry old time. I suppose I should mention Croatia since this is my first blog since all those shinannigens, it was ridiculous.

2000trees this weekend and BOY am I excited, then I have a couple of proms with nyc and a course at some point to attend, plus reading festival at the end of august and at some point I need to go on holiday with my fam AND have a birthday. (it's my birthday in 24 days guys, be excited)

WILL HOW HAVE YOU NOT SEEN BATMAN UNTIL THIS WEEK. I have the dark night you can totes borrow it. Also your revision finishes in like 9 days I could not be more excited.

Josh cheer up buddy, I'ma come down at some point though my summer is pretty booked up so give me a bit to sort my shit out.

Juliet I'm glad your placement's going well :) again I'ma be up there at some point I promise.

It's very nice to hear from all of you.
TO LONDON

Guys, you’re awesome. Let’s not stop blogging over the summer, especially as Josh and Juliet won’t be around much, it would be good to keep up with what you’re doing.

Not much worth mentioning from my week. Revising is going ok. I am in a funny sort of stage where half my time I am in blind panic about how little time is left and the other half I am thinking everything will be fine. I am in the panicky mood at the moment.

Spending lots of time being bored next to my computer with my wallet nearby is a bad idea. I keep buying expensive things that I don’t need. This week I purchased a Ze Frank poster and a pair of fancy headphones. The Ze Frank poster is really cool to be fair, but boy did the postage cost a lot. I bought the headphones when I stumbled upon the headphone subreddit. I was just generally browsing the posts when I found one by someone who liked almost identical music to me who was looking for advice and the headphones they got recommended looked really cool so I just bought them. They are insanely fucking good; I don’t even regret getting them. It turns out high quality sound is just a bottomless pit which you can through tons of money into. Now I want to get a better soundcard and then a headphone amp and then I’ll want better headphones and the cycle will just repeat until I am a poor old man with all this stuff but not enough money to get any music.

I watched Batman Begins one night this week. Fuck was it good. Like, fuck. One of my favourite films ever I would say, although that doesn’t mean much as I really have seen no films. Do any of you have The Dark Knight of DVD? I would really like to see that before the new Batman film comes out in a few weeks. I also watched the first Godfather film. I didn’t enjoy that nearly as much but I think that was partly because I was in the wrong mood to watch really long film. I might try it again sometime.

I just got home from Swindon the opera. It was really really good and David and Polly were both fantastic. I learnt lots of interesting facts and was thoroughly entertained.

Matt, if you were an old rock star you would be the one from Love Actually, everyone will buy your songs and you’ll get to fuck over Blue, who let’s face it, are cunts. Everyone will be happy and Hugh Grant will be the prime minister. So yeah, don’t stop blogging.

Here is a video that made me really happy this week. I don’t know what it is about it that is so good but it really made me smile.

Lets shave our heads.

The best laid plans of mice and men

I've been a bad friend of late, taking a summer away from everyone to research my dissertation, go fishing when I want and earn some money.  It didn't feel like such a selfish thing to do at the time, I knew I'd be back for good in a year but right now a year feels like a while too long to wait.  Besides, what would be the point in paying for rent but not staying there?  Croatia really brought on this feeling I'd made a terrible mistake this summer but at least I had Trees to look forward to and now even that's totally messed up.  It is lovely down here but it's sometimes hard to find things to pass the time.  I do have my PS2 now, there are lots of lovely walks around here, pubs to visit etc. etc. but they're not exactly the same as seeing the kittens day in day out.  I wish I could see you guys and go to The Savoy and drive around Wiltshire and all that but I traded it all in and I'm really sorry.

So yeah, I've really pissed myself off this time.  I know how Juliet feels, wanting a kitten visit and it seems too much to ask but that would be really cool.  Anybody and everyone is welcome here, there is plenty of space in the bedroom - we could probably fit another 5 or 6 people in here no problem, I'd feed you guys and show you the sights.  You can meet my Falmouth friends (or at least the ones that are here this Summer), my two world colliding sounds pretty exciting.  I'll be visiting in August for definite though, it's the very least I can do.  I fancy a weekend at Field View festival followed by a few days of getting drunk with kittens in Swindon.  We could jump in at Sommerford and be beautiful.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of my new room, taken on a shitty webcam:

As you can see, I rule.





Croatia was sick, but obviously you all know that.

 It should be illegal for a holiday to be so awesome when there are some people in the world that will never laugh that much throughout their entire lives.  It's grey and mild here at the moment, but apparently it's going to get better soon an Croatia has inspired me to go cliff jumping some more, so off to Pendennis I shall go.

My family are coming down next weekend, I haven't got a clue what to do with them, but it will be nice to see them again.  It's the first time they've visited since first year so I have learnt a lot more about what to do since, trying to keep everybody entertained with the same thing is difficult in our family though.  The best I can do is be seen to be coping but I just bought a Tesco shop and don't have any money until next Saturday (at which point, Kerry and David, I WILL pay you back) so this may be tricky.  It's really funny being a student.  When your windowsill is mouldy, your clothes are all dirty, you can hear the bar below you at midnight, there's electric to be put on the meter but still time to go until your next payday, when you put off your work until the last minute at your grade's expense, when the pubs are open but your pockets closed at least you can still laugh at yourself.

I'm gonna go cook some chicken.

Miss you all. x

Scottish spinster.

I am alone in my flat. Which is great for cooking meals / tidying etc... but really boring for life.
Pete and Gav and a few others are dotted around, but STILL. Need some kitten company, YAKNOW?

But yes. Placement is good so far, apart from having to get there at 8:30am tomorrow. I am a sleepy bear, and seemingly incapable of actually eating in the mornings. I feel ill, and try to shove some toast down - usually fail - and spend the rest of the morning in a hunger coma.
I like the work so far though. Fear I spend far too much time fucking up. Like today my supervisor had to leave early and left me to mount some semithin slides we'd cut and stained earlier, and MY GOD. They were shocking. I kept getting the DPX all other my gloves and sticking to everything, and then when they were drying the cover slips kept slipping so that the sections weren't even covered anymore and blargghhhh!
I wrote a sorry note on his desk and scuttled away home.

I am tired.
Off to pack my lunch for tomorrow, and then I think over to Pete and Gav's. Hopefully for an early night, as not an hour ago I completely conked out in front of an episode of Grey's and quite possibly drooled all over the sofa.

Croatia was great y'all.
Miss you guys.

I’m sure my week has been incredibly boring in comparison to all of yours. I think I left my house about twice in over the entire seven days. I would say revision is going averagely. I have written so many little question cards it is unreal. I have gone over about 60 of the 110 lectures that I need to know, and then I also have a fair amount of anatomy to learn too. I think I can get through it all though.

This week I got the results for the exams I had in the middle of June. I passed them both which was lovely and I actually did quite well in them which is reassuring, I don’t think I could have managed revising for another 2 exams.

It was Reddit’s Arbitrary Day this week. The person who bought me stuff was incredibly on the ball and I got my presents almost straight away. In the little personal description I wrote that I was revising at the moment so they bought me a toy medical kit, a book of cartoons about being a doctor and the biggest box of haribo you have ever seen. I think there is a very real danger of it giving me diabetes but it will be totally worth it.

My parents are away for 4 days this week. Normally this would be an ideal opportunity to have some kind of party but I don’t think that’s going to happen this week. Maybe you guys could come over and we could watch a film or something one evening though, that would be pretty great.

Juliet, you’ve gone already and I only saw you maybe twice. I’m really sad about this but at least I got to see you briefly last night and hopefully I will be seeing you in Edinburgh in a few weeks time.

I’m really glad you had a great time in Croatia. Maybe we’ll get a chance to go somewhere else together some time, I hope so. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to make it to Trees this year either, it’s just on such a bad date. I don’t want to be the first of the original gang not to make it to one!

I’m sorry this blog is so focused on exams but I am finding it really hard to think of anything else to talk about, seriously, I think maybe I’m going slowly insane.

I'll leave you with Rémi Gaillard's new video. I don't understand what's going on but it looks incredible.