flu

As the title hints, I've finally been struck down with Fresher's flu. It's ridiculously annoying because it's affected me just when my CFS has been playing up, so it's a double whammy. I'd at least like to be able to read, you know? So I could do some sort of work while being knocked for six.

University

Well I haven't blogged here for quite a while, mostly due to laziness and internet trouble cursing me for the last two weeks.

So, in the last two months I've arrived at University in Liverpool, spent three weeks in Halls and have started to get into the swing of University life. Been out a few times, done the obligatory early morning tutorial hungover and read an awful lot. Mostly university reading, which means I don't have time to read the smallish stack of books I brought up here to read recreationally. At the moment I'm having to get through about 2 plays, 2/3 secondary texts for Drama and I'm aiming for 2 books a week on Philosophy of Language.

The largest shock here has, I suppose, been living in Halls. The noise and the constant demand to socialise has been the most difficult to accommodate as although I'm usually reasonably sociable, I do enjoy peace and quiet. It's generally quiet in the mornings though, the compulsory student hangover kills any early birds that may be lurking within the halls.

Talking of birds, there's a lovely stream visible out of the kitchen and my bedroom's window that's populated by a few moorhen and duck families. As the path going by our block doesn't get used much (ours being the furthest in this direction) they often come up to right under the window. It's a lovely sight to see.

As I've mentioned before, I was without internet for 10 days. Internet being rather essential to the modern student, with all our tutorial, timetable, lecture and workshop materials being on VITAL (the student blackboard system) this necessitated frequent trips to the University Library. The Library being a 15minute bus ride away, my cfs kicked in with the frequency of the trips. Not fun. Not fun at all. It seems to be mostly fixed now, there's just the occasional outage.

Back.

Back from London and Great Missenden. I'll give a short overview.

Cocktails, Alex James nearly running me over, meteors, ridiculous amounts of wine, SaTC, Tapas and Harvey Nics.

I miss it all already.

Oh golly gosh

Do you think by starting like that I sound like a massive pretentious arse? I do, you say? Excellent! It's always good to keep in character.

I noticed I hadn't updated this in around 20 days, and that seemed a bit bad considering that when I started this, I had the intention of keeping it fairly updated. Such a gap can't be tolerated. In my defence, nothing that exciting has been going on in my day to day life. I think I've updated you all on the medical 'OH GOD THERE'S SOMETHING PRESSING ON MY EYE' problems that're going to be checked out. I should probably be terrified about that, but it doesn't seem particularly real.

On a more positive note, I'm off to London and the country in just under a week. Exciting stuff!

Air hockey,

Air hockey is surprisingly fun. Met up with James around 1.30, him being a few hours late after Harwood overslept, the lazy git. Drunk a lot of coffee and played some long neglected pool. I'm still a flukey bastard. After that, well I managed to successfully decline bowling and instead played some air hockey for the first time. It's pretty fun, certainly requires deft hand-eye coordination, which is not particularly my forté, though I won more games of that than I did pool.

Also bought a few new books as I had a few hours to spare before James got into town. At least that's my excuse. If you're interested, they are:

The old man and the sea

A handful of dust

Labyrinths.

I'm planning on taking a module in Modernism in the second semester of the coming academic year, so I can sort of excuse the buying of the second text with that. I do think, however, that at the current rate of buying a few books every time I go in to town, I'll soon be broke, so I'd better slow down. However hard I'm going to find that. Don't blame me, they're addictive!

Illness

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of spending around five hours in a terminally hot Hospital in London. Packed to the brim, there wasn't really anywhere to sit down, let alone in any sort of comfort. Still, the air conditioning worked, if you were close enough to it. What was the outcome of this expedition to Moorfields you may ask? Well long story short, with a brief mention of ultrasound scanning of my eyes, it turns out I need a scan to find out why exactly one eye is tilting a way it shouldn't be. Yes, that does have the implication you think it does. I can't pretend I didn't have a few hours where I worried a bit, but I've had so many MRI scans, or other scares in the past that I feel surprisingly pretty relaxed about this. I'm finding it more stressful to sort out the damned appointment than any prospective results.

On a side note, that hospital was featured in the day of the triffids 60's film adaptation.

Pointless entry,.

Bored, tired, 2am. Should probably be sleeping, but the effort of walking over is too much.

Apathy.

Finished applying for university accommodation last night. Gone for the two halls on greenbank, hoping I get into the SC ones, as I rather like my strange mealtimes, thankyouverymuch. That and the whole vegetarian thing, there's always the risk that vegetarian food served is going to be a) tasteless or b) awful. I shouldn't really have to worry, I guess, as Universities usually are pretty good for veggies, but you can never be sure.

Alas poor yorrick. I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest.

Started reading DFW's Infinite Jest last night. I'm about 50odd pages in, and really enjoying it, the only gripe I have with it so far is the notes are at the back in the appendix, where it would really have been useful to have had them at the bottom of the page, as in an essay. When you're tackling a tome of 1000+ pages, to have to keep flicking back and forward to a mini-essay at the back to be able to fully appreciate a paragraph, it does get on your nerves a bit.

In distinctly non-literary news, new shorts arrived today! Of course, I then awoke to a grey morning. It's the same thing that happens whenever I think about getting some sort of sun cream out so I don't burn to a crisp, leaving me with the ultimate decision between burning like the ginger I am, or freezing to death outside. I of course opt for the burning.

The X files.

Found all the series on iTunes. Thank goodness for the external hard drive, eh? Should fill up some time, watching all five series. But first comes the process of downloading. Even on my reasonably quick connection, it'll take at least 30 hours. Cripes.

In other developments, pretty worried. I mean, there's only so much you can do, right? But god knows I'll do what it takes to help all I can.

9/6/10

Feels odd to write 10 for the year, as if I have a nagging feeling that it shouldn't be that year. As if it should really be prefixed by a 0 or something. I'll get used to it, probably by the time the year's nearly over.

Summer is upon us. When I say 'us' I mean me in particular. I've been out of exams for around ten days and am already pretty bored. Usually around this time of year I flee the country (not for any illegal reason, you understand..), so the wanderlust's building up. I have a sort of urge to go away somewhere nice for quite a few months, but that usually involves heat, and I have stuff to do that requires email access, which'd be a pain in the arse to organise. Thankfully europe appeals just as much. Milan, anybody?

Moar exams and stuff (p2!)

They're all over now. Four months free, will mostly consist of playing video games, reading, writing, brushing up on Latin and a few other modern european languages.

I reckon I'm getting to the end of disc 2 on FFXIII, pretty good so far. As I've found with the other FF's the malaise around the battle system is present, picking what characters to form the party with is trickier than the negotiations surrounding the hung parliament. Got Red Dead Redemption arriving tomorrow, though I want to get to the end of FFXIII before I start on that.

Going to see a play the end of next month, I think. Though the whole drama surrounding it is ridiculously stressful. The sort of drama we're talking about here is 'might as well fuck off out of the country to bypass it' sort. Yeah, that bad. Oh well, i'm sure it'll all go smoothly, it's just more stress I don't want to be dealing with after I've had the wonderful experience of revising hard for exams for the past month. I though I was able to relax now, but the metaphorical gods have decreed otherwise.

Speaking of fleeing the country. I usually do a couple of weeks away in June or July. This year I was going to start off in Norway and travel down to Israel, but with Israel decided to be absolute arses today, I'm guessing the whole region's going to be destabilised for the year. Well, more so than usual at least.

I guess I could avoid it, or just go to SE Asia, but heat doesn't agree with me, and I'd originally been planning that route for a while now. I suppose the risk is worth it, I just won't continue down to Egypt through Gaza. That'd be asking for trouble, and my picture alongside an article about a stupid student that's gone and got himself injured/kidnapped isn't really what I want my print debut to be.

Other things to do over the summer include attempting to get my exercise levels up. I'm going to attempt to continue activity twice a week, to replace getting in to University, lest I sink back into minimal exercise levels. That wouldn't boost my chances of managing University come September energy wise. What I was thinking of was a bit of biking and swimming, it's moderate exercise and I can increase the length biked and swam accordingly.

Examssssss

In the middle of them. They've gone okay, second question of my Tragedy I was under insane time pressure, which went along with exhaustion and didn't really produce optimum performance. Pretty happy with the first answer, though I felt clarity in places was a tad dodgy. Intro to Literature 2 exam tomorrow, and then I'm free for the summer!

Moving.

Spent about half an hour attempting to move a couch through the back door so it can go to the skip today. Failed miserably, for two reasons. First, that thing's bloody heavy. Secondly, I swear the doors have shrunk..

Essay, study, tea,

Last two essays are pretty much done, just editing left now. Literary theory essay I'll be handing in tomorrow, but my history essay'll be edited a tad, then handed in on Tuesday. The lit theory essay, a 2500 word..ish mass of Woolf, Butler's gender theory and Germaine Greer has actually been a fun experience to write, even if it was somewhat frantic. The history essay, however, was a little more frantic. Considering I haven't actually written that many history essays in the course of my rather convoluted schooling, I not only had the subject matter to wrestle with, but the completely different structure. Nevertheless, I got through it, despite the added inconvenience of a mere 1000 word limit. It had the added plus of fitting into revision for that module.

These essays being mainly out of the way, exam revision can get into full steam. I've reread Slaughterhouse Five (so it goes) and made extensive notes on that, and I'm currently rewriting my notes on Eliot, Wordsworth and Keats. History wise, Enlightenment and Renaissance areas I'm pretty confident of my knowledge in, having covered them rather well in my research for the aforementioned paper. English Civil War wise, I have a brief outline, but somewhat shakey in the details, and the same goes for the Reformation.

Completely unrelated, the 1971 SlaughterHouse Five film adaptation, which Vonnegut was rather pleased about, not once had the phrase 'so it goes' uttered. Terrible, right?

Back to the earl grey.

Exams approach.

As the title hints, the grim spectre of exams loom ominously on the horizon. By the time my two final essays are handed in on the twelfth, there'll be at most two or three weeks before I sit my first lot of University exams. As such, revision mode'll be engaged and I'll revert to the scholastic hermit persona for a while, to ensure I'm adequately prepared.

Paris (again)

I don't think I'm ever going to get bored with it. The more I travel there the more the city begs me not to leave it. You know when you go somewhere and feel 'at home', well that's it right there. Somewhat related, I realised yesterday on the train back that I know more about the nightlife in other countries than I do here. Though to be fair, I learned many a year ago that the nightlife in Peterborough is inexcusably crap.

Transferral.

Well as the title suggests I'm considering transferring to a different University for my second and third years. Already emailed a few University departments to make inquiries. Liverpool, RHUL, Warwick, Leicester and Glasgow. Got a few more interesting looking Unis to email, but I think that's enough for now. It'll be weird going to an ACTUAL University, living in Halls again. Was only in them for a week or so last time, at Nottingham. Noisy, noisy experience. Oh and the fire alarms OH GOD THE FIRE ALARMS.

Essays and transferrals.

After my tutor made a frantic search for the essays, I got my mark back for the essay I wrote.. a couple of weeks ago, I think. 75/100. Rather pleased about that. Certainly better than I was expecting.

The three weeks I have off seem to stretch out before me like a near endless horizon. They'll most likely be spent asleep, or reading. Perhaps both? Sleep reading, now there's an idea. Two of my favourite activities!

Plotting a transferral of University. Unsure where, somewhere with a very good English department, and a specialisation on the Renaissance would be nice. Emailed a few places.

Bought Murakami's Kafka on the shore today. Pile of books to read over the holiday is mounting steadily. Oh god and the essays, and the revision. aaahhhhh

Late awakenings.

Got up at two pm, which severely reduced the time I have to spend on things today. Massive headache as well, which makes the essay editing I have to do even more painful than it promised to be. Thankfully there's not much to do on it, just clearing up a few sentences and then I have the tedium of adding the bibliography.

Revenger's tragedy.

Just watched about three or four minutes of a film adaptation of middleton's 1606 play. It is set, apparently, in a dystopian Liverpool. Okay, 5 minutes in and I'm not going to bother watching the rest.

I met Kilgore Trout!

No, no I did not. But it's at least different from the thousand different variants of 'today' that have so far peppered my blog titles. Anyway, less prevaricating, more actual blogging.

Today got off to a very crap start when the first lecture was cancelled, so I had about six hours to kill. Instead of looting (in a civilised manner) waterstones like I usually do, I decided to give my bank account a rest instead. Then my headphones decided to quit on me, so I ended up having to spend the outrageous sum of £21 to replace those. Fucking expensive Apple merch. Then spend the rest of the morning/afternoon 'til three reading and drinking coffee. Nearly finished Capote's In cold blood. Quite an interesting, yet simultaneously chilling book. I suppose the 'thrill' comes from the fact that it was a real family that the two guys killed - the 'plot' actually happened. Was apparently one of the first true-crime novels.

Also finally spent the gift card I got for xmas at HMV, which I'd continually forgotten to take with me into town for all the Thursdays since I returned to Uni. Nice to see my memory works.. eventually. Ended up buying the film adaptation of Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated. I enjoyed the novel immensely, and from the trailer and reviews I've seen the film looks rather promising. I remain hopeful. Had a search for Capote, couldn't find it. Ordered it - should be here in a couple of weeks. Some credit on the card still remaining, something like £5? Unsure what to spend the rest on. No country for old men comes to mind, but I've half a mind to read Mccarthy's original novel first.

Thirteen hours sleep.

Yeah, that's how long I slept. Don't feel particularly refreshed, but that's not anything new. At least there's at least some of the day left, however. My latest subscription to the believer magazine came today. For those who don't know what it is, it's an American literary magazine, part of McSweeney's. It publishes latest reviews of indie film, books, independent articles etc. This edition has a free DVD on the front, which is something I haven't seen on any magazine in many a year. Apparently it has 'Beautiful, funny and rare short films from the Yugoslavian Black Wave'. It also has an article on Vérité sheep. I wasn't aware that sheep could direct! A shame it's not sold in Britain, but it's worth importing.

Got to read Waiting for Godot today. Much coffee required.

Sleep deprivation.

Well the 'funny side' hit me this morning finally. Might have been the sleep deprivation, though. At any rate, I found myself giggling at the absurdity of it all. Unfortunately the place I my subconscious decided to find it all so amusing was when I was walking past the primary school. So this morning at the bright and early hour of 8:10am a pale, hollow eyed, sleep deprived ginger guy was walking past the primary school with the giggles.

I bet that looked BRILLIANT.

In other news *cough*I'mawelladjustedpersonhonest*cough*, got the final package of books I need for the rest of the year through Amazon this morning. They apparently arrived while I was making an arse of myself. Thus, tomorrow shall be spent rereading Waiting for Godot for the first time in nearly a decade.

Lectures on no sleep are, as you can imagine, interesting experiences. Managed somehow to keep awake through all of them. Post-Modernism and Slaughterhouse Five lecture was interesting. The residual excitement kept me going through the marathon that was Althusser and Ideology.

Adequate summation.

OH GOD WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK FUCKINGTON.

Ahem. Yes. Arse. Well, swearing aside.. actually, no swearing not aside, there are no words to adequately describe this. But hey, at least I know my rambling here have actually been getting an audience these past few months. As for making this less arty, I wish I could say that this is due to me being a tortured artistic soul or something, but it really isn't. I just have a really fucking boring life, hence I make stuff up etc etc, anyway a summation.

Yes, I was quite deeply in love with lottie.

No, I did not equate paying for a holiday with sex. I'm not that sort of person.. at all.

Nor am I a psychopath, I'm just utterly crap at thinking up character names. My second name is James, anyway, that's where its ubiquity comes from.

Needless to say, I fucked up the telling her bit quite badly. Very badly. Hilariously badly. Then made a pass at the waiter.. I wish I was making this up.

Oh balls.

A Holiday

Well that's what I'm calling this short story I'm working on. It started off as a critique of inter-personal relationships while on holiday, and it's ended up as half that, half corporate satire. I'd like to get to the point where I can write something serious without it having a black-comedic edge. Not that there's anything wrong with making someone giggle while read, it's just a skill I'd like to have.

I also need to get better at character names, James seems to be the name for a lot of my protagonists, and as they usually meet a sticky end, it seems a bit odd that he keeps cropping up in everything I write. Speaking of names, perhaps the female characters also need a name change. I can't write any of Mary's dialogue without putting on an Irish accent, for that, I blame Dara O'Briain. Then of course there's the danger of your characters becoming Mary Sues..

N.B This is not quite as psychotic as it sounds. Honest.

Prose.

I haven't written properly for a while, so you'll have to excuse me (oh imaginary reader) if my posts suddenly start becoming both more numerous and rambling. I've decided that the only way to actually get better at writing, and more lucid with my ideas is to write as much as possible, therefore these blogs will increase in frequency. Hopefully, they'll become better written as time goes on, but we'll see. Hopefully in a few weeks I'll feel happy enough to continue writing short stories.

I've been slowly reading The Satanic Verses recently, and although at first I found Rushdie's prose complex and rambling, I've come to appreciate it as richly poetic. Someone in my class asked me what I thought it was like, having themselves read a few pages and found it confusing. I replied that you really had to get a couple of hundred pages in before it 'makes sense' and comes alive. But on reflection, I'm 400 pages in now and each page brings with it an enrichment.

Unsure what to read after I've finished it in a few days. I ordered three of neal stephenson's works, anathem, snow crash and cryptonomicon and Capote's 'In cold blood'. Thing is, I still have some Bukowski to read, not to mention the thousand word tome that is the first Jordan book in the wheel of time series. Perhaps I should just stop buying new books for a while until I've gotten through these.

Writing.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to carry a notebook and pen around with me. Whenever I get the urge to write, I'm never anywhere near my laptop. By the time I get home, the muse has left me.

blogblogblog

I suppose I'm writing this because I haven't done so in a while. I like to keep the appearance of activity, one reason being I swore to myself when I started this that I would actually keep this blog active once I started. There's so many dead blogs out there in the ephemeral thing we call the internet that I didn't want to add another to the expanding ranks.

Nothing of note has occurred recently to warrant a new entry, so I'll fill this as I have many other posts, by talking blandly about my day.

Was all right I suppose, watching other people do their presentations shed some light on how to give a better style of presentation next time I come to do one. Apparently my academic skill is fine, but the presentational aspect, showmanship etc, needs some work. Just glad I got mine out of the way last week, I doubt I could have given a decent presentation today when it feels as though my blood has been replaced with lead and someone's been feeding me sedatives.

Script.

I was just sitting on the bean bag on the landing, leafing through last semester's notebook, looking for the list of what texts are to be studied in this semester's Intro to Literature module. Found the list, then mindlessly flicked through the adjoining pages and noticed that my handwriting seems to vary wildly in slant, style and thickness. When I say varies widely, I really do mean it, some continual pages even on the same topic look as though they're written by different people. I'm guessing it's due to exhaustion or emotion, or something similar. I definitely notice the difference in legibility over the course of, say, an essay, when I get progressively more exhausted.

Good morning.

The dawn was glorious, rays of piercing sunlight broke through the curtains and gently awoke James in the manner that only a early spring day can. A usually and an unusually melancholy fellow he felt different today, the gloomy cobwebs brought down at last. It wasn't as if he suffered in his melancholic gloom, he accepted it and thought of it as a different perspective on life where one was constantly either pleasantly surprised or reaffirmed in one's belief whenever an outcome was discovered. Nor did his friends, and he had many, think that his pessimism was a character deficit. On the contrary, it gave him an aged air with a cutting, dry wit like a good red wine and a cosy sense of aloofness.

So it was with a strange feeling that he made his customary toast and tea that morning, going through the motions of taking the bread bag from the bread bin, removing two slices and placing them into the toaster while filling the kettle through the electric hum of the bread browning. It was as though his actions were someone else's, the movements of his hands holding the knife, buttering the toast and putting the butter back in the refrigerator carried out by a puppeteer. He ate his toast plain and sipped his tea in silence.

James worked at a library, thinking about his place of work you could say it fitted his persona like a glove. A particularly fine, velvet, glove. It was one of those old fashioned libraries that mostly still contained books and hadn't yet been infected by the modern desire to make a library a glorified internet café. The rows and rows of oak bookcases stood triumphantly, stone walls against the marching, rifle carrying army of the 'information age'. Needless to say, James enjoyed his work and the people that came and went. A concrete bastion against transience. Whatever happened outside, the books would always be there, not like the people, he thought. They never stayed, always went.

So it goes that the very morning that he felt out of sorts would be the very first morning that he was not particularly looking forward to going to work. What once felt welcoming and permanent now felt oppressive and staid. The familiar oak bookcases filled with row after row of musky books no longer gave the promise of permanence, they now instead threatened imprisonment. Thought of the twilight rooms practically gave him the shivers.

Nevertheless, he picked up his briefcase, finished his tea and walked out of the door. The morning practically screamed life and vitality, each note of birdsong was as beautiful as a whole sonata of Beethoven. The prospect of arriving at the library which had on previous mornings served to get him through the walk suddenly reversed. Now it was the prospect of being able to walk through the glorious spring day for twenty minutes that acted as a sweetener to the nine hours before he could walk in what would undoubtedly be a delightful evening.

Getting to the end of the street, a solitary cloud passed in front of the sun, dimming the world for a brief moment. James pressed the button at the crossing and waited patiently as he had done countless times before. This time, he looked left, right. No cars coming. 'Pff', he thought 'I'm wasting my time waiting here, it's a clear road for christ's sake and the only sound is that of birdsong. Perfectly safe. For once in my life I might as well just forge ahead'.

Striking out confidently across the road, the cloud dampening the sun resumed its path across the sky, letting the sun illuminate the street once again. He paused halfway across, blinded by the sheer beauty for the second time. He didn't even hear the car approaching.

Scraps.

A young man sat alone in a crowded café. His companion, a mousey blonde in her early twenties was talking to him and he wasn't paying the slightest bit of notice to what she was saying. He nodded politely every couple of minutes or so while periodically sipping the rapidly cooling tasteless cappuccino he'd ordered when he arrived half an hour before. Staring out of the window, the passing shoppers and traffic fused into a stream of orange flecked grey, carrying away on its back the words of the girl, into one stream of ambient noise.

He suddenly yawned, the expression of his exhaustion forcing him back into polite conversation and the world around him regained its individuality. She had a name again, the people and the cars were no longer heading to the same goal and the raindrops raced each other down the window.

3.02.10

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense as though of hemlock I have drunk. Keats, Ode to a Nightingale.

Pretty much sums up how tired I am right now, attempting to think or read, let alone read critically is a monumental struggle. Oh and let's not even go there when it comes to walking, my legs feel as though they've been replaced with lead. I don't think I've been doing much more than usual, I've been studying more but I've been doing that over the past couple of weeks so why would it suddenly have an impact now? Nor have I been doing more exercise than usual, bar some slight variation but nothing major to have this much of an impact. I guess it's just something to work though, with any luck I'll be back to being able to think halfway reasonably within a short while.

23/1/10

Before I continue, let me say one very important thing clear. I love Shakespeare, the language, the metre and the wit. Nevertheless, FUCKING HELL it's dense sometimes. When you don't read an entire play in one go it loses the magic. The sense of continuation, intricate plot lines and sheer charm just dissipates into archaic language. Case in point, was reading Lear a few weeks ago, then got distracted at the beginning of the last act, causing me to shelve it for a while. Today, I picked it up and resumed. Nothing. The delight I felt when reading act after act had gone. Sure, the tricks of language were charming, but nothing approaching what I felt when reading previously.

I suppose the moral of the story is to always read your Shakespeare in one go.

So it goes (again)

I'm back to writing long, rambling blog entries. Although I don't really write here for anyone other than myself, therefore I don't have to worry about succinctness of expression and clarity of thought, I still like to add a little bit of sharpness to my blogging. I attempt to fashion a sharpness of writing that aids me in other literary endeavours, such as essay and prose writing. Nevertheless, as I have hinted at, I have let this slip of late and decided to let this be. Stream of consciousness for the win, as they barely say.

Family visited here yesterday. As readers know I'm not a massive fan of children, but your own family always seems a bit different. My nephew seems quite attached, yet confused concerning me. I suppose it's because I have red hair, yet he rarely sees me. Therefore I should be part of his 'world' and yet I'm alien. Very confusing for a one year old. He's quite a fun little one anyway, he came into my room yesterday and started dancing to the music I had on. Seeing a one year old attempting to headbang to Converge is always a good thing.

There's some makeshift bookshelves on the landing. Winebottle crates or something, from Cambridge University. It almost seems right that I'm using them to store my existentialist and classics books. They also have the advantage of being tall and deep enough to hold my Nortons. Now anyone studying English Literature shall know the sheer volume of those tomes is enough to challenge many a shelf, but these are able to resist.

There's a little over a fortnight 'til I return to University. Well, 'return', I really mean 'until lectures restart'. There's a guest lecture on tomorrow, something about elements of the occult and esoteric in modern Lit, but whether I'll attend or not is up in the air at this point.

2 weeks, four books to read. Should be quite doable.

Another update.

Well again there's been a massive gap between my last post and this entry. I wish I could claim that it's due to some sort of interesting business, but it isn't. My life at the moment is quite dull, consisting of WoW and attempting to think of something interesting to do. That's including the obligatory putting off studying.

Speaking of studying, it's around twenty days until I return to University and find out how I did on those four essays. I'm not exactly nervous, but I'm not exactly thrilled when it comes to finding out how I did. Placid, is the word I'm looking for I think.

As an English student, it's ironic that the books that have grabbed my interest as of late are History books. Before we get into the whole new historicism/criticism dichotomy, I'd like to point out that it's quite irrelevant. The book in question that's currently got me by the gonads is Niall Furguson's Colossus, in which Furguson is acting as an apologist for Imperialism and specifically modern day American Imperialism. Now normally I wouldn't agree at all with the concepts of globalisation and interference in other country's affairs, but this has challenged my ideas.

The periods in history of greatest stability have always coincided with a great power, ordering society and imposing laws and peace. When there's no great world power, everything goes to hell. Since the fall of the soviet empire, America's the only superpower we have left, and if it declines, the world stage will lack the fear of someone in the background that might come and kick arse if someone misbehaves. Yet at the same time is there to aid and help developing countries. As the author put it, a velvet glove concealing an iron fist. If it retreats into itself as some within the American political system are arguing, then we'll see another period of anarchy and constrained development.

Ferguson's point is clear and convincingly put, which for someone such as myself is certainly worrying - that the world needs an empire, and a liberal benevolent empire could do a great deal of good. However, I remain yet to be convinced, I think some of the bonuses are somewhat overstated and are in many ways demeaning to developing nations.

Anyway, back away from that mini book review, I've been attempting to sort my sleeping pattern out. So far it's been pretty successful, seeing as I've been getting up the sunny side of midday.

I shall end with a statement few could disagree with. Earl Grey tea is wonderful.