What a lovely way to start the day...
I don't, of course, mean the title literally: I love my fellow students (some as friends, some as colleagues, some in a way that will make readers snigger and say "easy target"... okay, maybe the last one's a joke). However, at 09:00 on a Wednesday, it's a great feeling to get one-up and be ahead of the game. Allow me to explain...
I'm working on a HIS2033: Imperial China assignment, which requires two chunks of text to be analysed. Due to roughly one hundred people taking the course and only one copy of one of the books available, you can imagine how challenging getting the book is. With only 24 hours on the clock and the situation becoming more desperate by the second, with lives at stake, I now know how Jack Bauer feels! So, despite my body saying "Go on, stay in bed, you've only had five hours sleep... go on, sleep some more... stay in bed... eat chocolate... play PlayStation, do nothing today..." I was up at 07:00 and at the library for when the doors opened at 08:55. Early bird really does catch the worm: I have the book for the next four hours, plenty of time to make a photocopy and escape into the distance, laughing like a madman!
Downside? Well, there always is with me, and this time it's a biggie: I'm supposed to be in a European Politics lecture right now. However, a lot of the first few lectures are going over old ground, and I have friends there who promise copies of their notes. I know these aren't excuses, but with a deadline and the clock ticking, I had no choice. At least I didn't pull a gun on the library receptionist and scream "CTU! Tell me where the bomb... uh, I mean, book! Tell me where the book is!"
One assignment down, four to go... and that's just Imperial China...
In other news, madcap
Bonkers fans, the 92 Bayswater Road 'House of Death' (now with extra death) has finally been visited by the nice people at RM Accomodation! Actually, the guy they sent round was really kind and covered pretty much everything on the list... he even returned after-hours with a drawer he had fixed earlier on, but that wasn't dry in time to install it. We now have lights in the bathroom, lights in the kitchen, lights in my room, a kitchen bin, a clean front door, a clean dishwasher, a fixed shelf in the bathroom, a fixed toilet seat and a clean back yard. The damp in my bedroom is "a big job and an ongoing project", but it's hardly serious: I've been living there for a month or so now and I haven't grown a second head or webbed toes or anything. Besides, it really is a big job!
In fact, aside from a quick food shop later today, a three-hour chunk of non-stop lectures and seminars tomorrow and a spot of tidying my room, I've got a clear horizon. Which bodes well for poker night! I'm going to win so much... not money, mind, plastic chips... but they're all mine!
In the political spectrum, there's exciting news as regards the Conservative Party Conference and weblogs like mine: David Cameron has launched the excellently-named "Webcameron", a personal weekly weblog where other party members can post their thoughts, chat with David and generally talk future policy, current politics and anything else in between. I love the idea: Cameron is keeping up the image of being in-touch with the voters, modern, sophisticated and willing to listen and show himself as an accountable politician, with his ideas open to public access and scrutiny. One thing I've learned from studying politics is that
all politicians are supposed to be open to public access and scrutiny, but can you imagine His Tonyness doing something like this? Closest we ever got was the piece of New Labour puffery a couple of years back, the 'Big Conversation', which basically boiled down to, "Tony talks, you listen". Nice...
I know I seem to always go on about the Conservatives and ignore the other parties (except to attack them), and that this is rather biased. I apologise, but to be completely honest, the government of Labour is getting away with absolute murder and mayhem: whatever good they do (and admittedly often do) is overshadowed by the negative aspects. The Liberal Democrats, the "third party" of a two-party system, have nice ideas some of the time but lack the weight and power to make a difference. In my view, the Conservative Party have the heritage and experience to be successful leaders, and despite a few splutters in the past (which I gladly recognise: Iain Duncan Smith, for example. While Dave Davis is the Tory politician who used to be in the SAS, good old Duncan Smith was the only one who managed to get in and out without anybody noticing) I believe they have the ideas, the future and the get-up-and-go to make a decent country out of modern Britain. Because, let's face it, anything's better than the state of the nation at the moment...
Wow, I've banged on a lot today! I'm wrapping this up sharpish, then: I do, after all, have an assignment to write! Greetings to Mum, Kate, Sandra and all the other hard workers at UniS, heads-up to Matt (hope you feel better soon) and a shout out to Dad, who really needs to start leaving work before 18:00 (go for a beer around five, you'll love it)!
Peace out, ladies and mentalmen... it's great to be back!
