Today (well, yesterday) was just one of those happy, fun days you have without particularly special or exciting happening. (It’s probably got quite a lot to do with food, actually.) It was Oliver’s birthday, so we gathered in his room in the morning to present cards and gifts. I felt slightly competitive after Abi and Oliver pulled out all the creative stops on my present last year, so naturally my card had to be in extended video form… but never mind, it all went down well. Then it was off to the Copper Kettle for English breakfast before heading to Caius library to work. And I know this will sound ridiculous to everyone but me, but as I was sitting there, just reading (Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy) without bothering to take notes – sun streaming in through the window on my face – I actually caught myself feeling like I was on holiday. After all, don’t you read a lot on holiday anyway? Machiavelli isn’t exactly stereotypical beach material but he’s a lot more palatable than the others thus far, and I felt strangely relaxed despite the essay deadline looming round the corner.
Despite said reading I am still slightly behind, due to having volunteered on the shadowing scheme this year, but it was a pleasure to do and I felt I should repay the debt anyway. Basically, you’re assigned a state-school (or some other target group) Sixth Former who ‘shadows’ you for a couple of days, in order to give people a taste of everyday Cambridge life and dispel some myths at the same time. I joined up a fair amount with my two fellow Caians who also had shadows this week, so got to know three shadows show them around together, despite the picturesque if cold snow! It seems to have gone pretty well, and I for my own personal touristy checklist I can also say that I’ve (a) been inside King’s chapel and (b) seen a Footlights performance now. Success!
Sorry, but:
‘Tragic Life Stories’ in WHSmith
No. Please… no. This should not exist. Not as a distinct section!
I’m in the computer room, not bothering to go home before I come right back again for dinner. So, meme time!
1. I study History, except most of the time I don’t study ‘real history’ – as my friends do – but cuddly modern ‘history’ about what happened yesterday afternoon.
2. You can always bribe me with chocolate fudge cake.
3. I believe that all of the world’s problems are ultimately a manifestation of inadequate public transport.
4. I often fail to get out of bed until at least several hours after I really should have done.
5. I have completed all but one of the challenges in Peggle Nights.
6. I care about the difference between toleration and respect.
7. People think that gossip involves lying, but I know that gossip normally involves excessive truth.
8. Sometimes, I actually have to stop what I’m doing in order to note down an idea for a blog post on my phone.
9. I overuse the 
emoticon to such an extent that it appears in my lecture notes.
10. I am a major electronic hoarder.
11. I want to study lots and lots of different subjects, against which ‘earning money’ seems very dull.
12. It takes me hours to go through e-mail and RSS after a day or two away from my laptop.
13. I used to be blond!
14. I would be very jealous if Andy got to burn down Daily Mail HQ.
15. I despair at the phrase “let’s agree to disagree”, principally because I’m never sure what happens if I don’t agree to this.
16. I wish I read more 
17. I listen to crazy things on my MP3 player, and smile at the fact that passers by don’t know.
18. I love ‘mango’ beer more than any other alcoholic beverage 
19. I get confused about whether everyone else also realises that other people have also thought about the fact that everyone thinks similar things but believes themselves to be unique.
20. My spelling and grammar are far from perfect, but incorrect apostrophes – including 1920’s – burn my eyes.
21. The superpower ability I would choose would be the slippery art of persuasion
22. It’s not just that I don’t believe in a god, a soul, the afterlife or universal morality, but I don’t even think (in my own subjective way) that these things are at all desirable.
23. I eat way, way too much cheese and drink far, far too much orange juice.
24. I sometimes think my blog had a golden era, but I know that it never really did.
25. Sometimes I think that a deep brooding unhappiness would make for more interesting posts, but I can’t provide one, sorry!
Blimey… what a completely crazy, emotional and turbulent week. Unsurprisingly I am slightly behind on work after it all, and should really be spending these precious hours working out what the hell I’m going to write about Thomas Aquinas tomorrow. But I’ve already been strangely disconnected from the online world recently – save Twitter! – and it’s better to blog now while the memories are still snowy fresh.
The most important thing, of course, is that Lucy and I are back together 
And I know what you’re all thinking () but surprisingly often in life the crazy, silly, ‘wrong’ things are actually the very best things of all, and so it is with this. (She’s probably better at blogging about it than me ) And this means, of course, that my blog can now return to its rightful mode of bland non-emotion, ‘breathless narrative’ (to borrow a phrase from certain marking criteria) and little illustrative pictures. Which is surely a very good thing too.
A long day
So yes, these little pictures down the side? Snapshots from snow day! (Well, until my poor little phone gave out.) But not like everyone else’s happy-super-funtime snow day, but the day that begins with the realisation that you are trapped in a village, and need to get to Birmingham, and then London, and then Cambridge somehow. Granted, it’s the nicest village to be trapped in given that I was at Lucy’s for the night, and initially I thought I would just wait it out. But then the news seemed to suggest that the snow was fast heading up the country, and if I waited I could get even more trapped as the West Midlands became a blizzard. So, in what with hindsight proved to be a minor miracle of timing, I set off just after lunch for what became a (bearable, if tiring) six hour trek. Some choice moments:
- As I walked to Cofton’s bus stop, a man standing in his driveway cheerfully wished me a merry Christmas. Aw, friendly ‘community’. This was so going to be the last I felt of it as I headed off towards a string of cities.
- Which is unfair, actually, because there was a quite lovely Icelandic woman who sat next to me on the train back to London and told me about real snow. Our chats were intermittent affairs, as I also had my head buried in Aquinas, but quite welcome.
- Walking from Euston to King’s Cross was so utterly strange. One, because of the relative lack of people. Two, because those people that were about were carefully trudging rather than busily bustling. And three, because the snow had become hidden puddles leaving me with wet feet.
- King’s Cross. The train is ‘on time’, but it apparently leaves in a few minutes and there is still no platform number. A crowd gathers. Then, suddenly, a murmur as the platform is finally announced. The crowd surges. People start to walk, then jog, and then it actually develops into an all out race down the station. “This is so silly and overtly competitive” I think as I break into a run and fight my way almost to the front. This train may be stopping at an unfathomable number of crazy places, but it’s the only train there is, and I will get a seat. As indeed I do. Yay!
Oh, and finally! The evening of Friday’s Caius formal, wine and Caroline in a hoodie (hehe) has almost been buried admidst all of this, so here’s a group photo:
Matt, Caroline shamelessly advertising, Andrew and Sona
(I reserve the right to retain the embarrassing hoodie photos until some such as time as when a News of the World exclusive could make me some money.)
I can’t let the question of ‘how?’ put me off for too long, else I’ll be too scared of doing it at all. But still, knowing what to say is impossible. And I can’t be my normal blogging self, because that doesn’t exist at the moment anyway. So here goes…
First of all, I couldn’t be more grateful for all my family and friends. Every single one of you has been fantastic 
even though I’m not sure I really deserve it, so thank you. I seem to have a ridiculous urge to keep talking to people – anyone – because thoughts only really hit me when I’m alone. And in particular, I have to publicly thank Abbi. Through the joys of life experience, she’s the person who has most understood and articulated everything that I feel. I can’t thank her enough.
So yeah. I was about to say ‘the hardest thing is…’ but the truth is there are loads of them. In the spirit of honest if perhaps unbearably awful writing, then, the hardest things include the sudden total lack of communication, not saying a proper goodbye, imagining how she’ll be, not being able to provide any comfort, fearing her hatred, and the long, long wait for something you know might never come. When could you ever say anything else to her again? Not now, obviously, not after two days. But two days suddenly feels like a lot longer than it did before.
Linda Moffitt on Colombia: “Such a sweet memory of the four of you meeting up in Colombia!” Dec 2, 07:42
