Over the past week I really, honestly, truly haven’t been sleeping enough. This is bad. Sleep is widely-recognised as being pretty vital for your ability to, ur, live, and therefore I am going to do it more.
Joshua doesn’t get enough photos
Which unfortunately means the rather cool blog I had planned about morphing faces into one another will just have to wait until the weekend. But it’ll be a better blog for it, I promise. Y’know, cause I’ll be, ur, alive.
That will be all.*
*Well it won’t really, because I’ve just realised I feel the need to include a picture or something to stop the blog being so dull. So have a picture of a Joshua snogging each and every one of you. Because he’s a lovely person and loves you all. He is Jesus after all.
This evening I attended a Socialist Worker’s Party public meeting. Future employers, upholders of the brutally repressive capitalist system and petty bourgeoisie alike – don’t panic! I haven’t signed up, comrade 
but it was a really enjoyable evening.
I went because Saoirse spoke so highly of Lindsey German, who was speaking about women’s liberation, and because I believe it’s only fair to turn the tables around a bit for a girl who I relentlessly debate with at school. Let’s make me the minority for once!
Anyway, Lindsey spoke eloquently and perfectly reasonably about women’s liberation – a flavour of which you can read on their website. To be honest, I didn’t disagree with much, because most of it was about diagnosing the issues we face in society today. The gender pay gap? How to support single mothers going into work? The pathetically low conviction for rapes? These are all genuinely important topics to discuss, and while I don’t believe a socialist overthrow of the capitalist system is the answer, they’re intelligently argued all the same.
The fun part, however, came afterwards as we all headed to the pub downstairs and started to talk. Slowly, more and more members of the public meeting seemed to encircle our table until I was surrounded by around 20 passionate socialists. Unlike, say, religious fundamentalists, their commitment to rational argument and debate meant that is was really fun 
and that’s not just me enjoying being the centre of attention as the black sheep to the party though that was fun too.
I don’t relish switching from being the most right-wing person in the room to becoming the most left-wing person in the room at certain Cambridge events, I have to say 
Today I got exam results: a C – 56/90 – in Physics and an A – 83/100 – in Maths. Which I am pleased about, yes! I may have scraped my A in Maths but I got it, meaning I don’t have to sit the unit with most of the class in June and hence freeing up valuable time for other revision. As for Physics, it should be noted this does make me the second highest in the class 
and while it’s not great it doesn’t affect my university prospects because no one takes account of my 4th A-Level. So, I might retake it for personal satisfaction (why not?) but it doesn’t worry me.
Yesterday I had the best catered lessons I have ever experienced. Ms Higgs Boson baked us delicious chocolate brownies as a bribe incentive for doing our presentations, while Mr Moore served mugs of tea all round. With chocolate hob nobs. Classy!
A really interesting part of my day today was helping to test a new website from UCAS, allowing prospective undergraduates to compare student satisfaction data. So I sat there, in front of a black MacBook and a mocked-up site, talking a lot about my impressions of the design. For someone who has done web design himself, it’s fascinating!
To be honest I’m sure I wasn’t that helpful because I probably knew a little too much about how the process worked. So I knew to insist that the behaviour of the search feature should fit the user model (“I want to search by subject, or uni, or both!”) and complain that there was too much vertical scrolling through menus before you got to the actual data. The guy observing chuckled to himself when I mentioned that no one ever clicks on ‘skip to content’ links. I also attempted – and failed – to click on the big logo in the top left as a way to get back to the homepage. He scribbled it down excitedly. They did have an excellent way of presenting data using colours though, where a stronger shade indicated a greater percentage of people.
It’s just fun because I’ve sat and watched people navigate my own humble web site completely differently to how I’ve designed it. Illuminating
Agh where has it all gone?! Half term is over 
and I really need to blog it before it all slips from my mind. In quick summary form, because it’s late.
Tuesday – Saw Hot Fuzz with madre. Really enjoyed this, although the ending was a bit over-long. I think this film appeals to me mostly for the scenes of a good old Londoner arriving in the countryside where his mobile phone signal is rubbish, everyone knows each other and there’s a campaign to raise money for the church roof. Frighteningly realistic
Oh and also had a haircut. Big whoop, despite almost all of my friends hating me because I’ve abandoned the ‘left-wing’ long hair. Sorry. It was curling at the back.
Wednesday – Dragged myself to Physics Practical revision day, where I slowly realised it might not be quite as bad as last year but is still going to be a monumental headache. Ms Taylor provided the inappropriate highlight of the day by angrily asking Manoj if Rishal was going to have to “sleep with your woman for you to have your children”. Haha!
Thursday – It proved to be quite the cinematic week as I watched Notes on a Scandal with Tash. At time of going to press, the Oscars haven’t quite started yet, but all bets are on for Helen Mirren to win best actress for The Queen. Well, I agree with my mum – Judi Dench deserves it more. She was wonderfully creepy as Barbara with the difficult task of carrying the film from the perspective of someone who is, quite frankly, a nasty piece of work. Emerged from cinema to meet Katie and my Grandpa who had been watching the new Hugh Grant romantic comedy (yawn) which left them in a rather cheerier mood than us, given the respective tone of their film!
(Unlike Lucy, I don’t find scenes of an Art teacher having sex with a 15 year old boy by a railway line traumatising in the slightest, even if the metaphor of having a train steam past at an opportune moment was slightly obvious, guys.)
Friday – Joshua’s 18th birthday party! I will not accept for an instant that he is 18, of course, because that means I’ll shortly be 18 too, and hence we’ll both be adults. Adults?! Ur, no. That’s not happening. However, the party was fun (for the most part!) and you can read a far more detailed description over on Sanna’s blog. Although she left off the fact that I got the best sofa and that I can’t play snooker. Probably because she was asleep at the time
Ooh and we also invented a new base unit – the fuckload (asterisked expletives are so tabloid). Well, we didn’t quite invent it but we did expand quite a bit on its usage. Examples: “Wow, there’s about 2.7 fuckloads worth of beer in the fridge!” and “The UK produces over 400 KFls (Kilofuckloads) of waste each year”. See, we’re not adults.
Saturday – Bit of a blur in the morning at least. I distinctly remember deciding to do some work in the evening, though have a funny feeling this didn’t happen.
Sunday – I attended a lovely apolitical luncheon at Emily’s with Robert and Saoirse. Also accepted an offer of babysitting! Because of course I’m a responsible adult y’know 
. Finally, it was also a certain anniversary and a certain brother’s birthday too. Hurrah!
Rob Bell on Baby’s first blog: “Congratulations! Sounds like you are really enjoying the first few weeks which is great. Time flies!” Oct 13, 12:59
