A day in the life.

Just so you can all laugh at me.

Woke up today at 7, turned the alarm clock off and slept till 9. Woke up in a panic and made it down IN TIME to meet the other englishians at the great gate for our lecture at 10. I was quite impressed with myself. Lectures were brilliant, as usual. We did Freud today in the Intro to 20th and 21st Century Lit Theory lecture, and the concept of England and Englishness in our Renaissance theme one. Then I head back for lunch in college.

The Plan was to work till 430, and then go punting (google it) with a bunch of the englishians. So we work, yes, then make our way to The Backs, where the punts are. Only to find that they've CLOSED it, because it LOOKED like it was going to rain. Pfft. So I go off to Deborah's room (I should really get down to uploading pictures, shouldn't I), and read till dinner. Which was...some fish thing. It being Friday.

And THEN I go back to my room to work again (I know, exhilarating.) till 9ish, when I go down to the college bar for a nice light drink. Light. Had 2. Was nice. And THEN fiona and I get convinced by these three silly boys, one from Trinity, one from Kings and one from Queens (these are all colleges in Cambridge, yes.) to go night punting. NIGHT PUNTING. So we did.

Which was fine, till silly boy from Trinity decides he wanted to punt. And only tells us after he's swapped with original punter (boy from Kings) that he's never done it before. So, naturally, at some point before Clares' bridge, he loses the punt pole. And we have to paddle with our HANDS to find it. Bear in mind, darlings, that it's FREEZING. And pitch black. Our HANDS. In unknown waters. We found it, amazingly enough. But were also very wet, because at some point the punt had tilted, and, again quite naturally, water had come in. So all our jeans were SOAKED. As you can imagine, it was cold. And wet. Did I mention cold?

Survived, though. And am now in my room, after a nice WARM bath, swaddled with a sweater and socks and a nice WARM mug of milk. I think I shall sleep early tonight. Going running tomorrow at 730 with Fiona. Should be fun.

The LAST time I went running here (day before yesterday) was NOT so fun, because stupid me agreed to go with jon and jon (yes, yes. pictures.). They tried to KILL me. Well no. Jon didn't. The other Jon did. Never again.

So yes. Sleep calls. My bed's looking deliciously WARM. And Vidhi's coming tomorrow, whoop! Halloween party tomorrow night as well. What should I go as...hmm.

Lord, how should I pray?

Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be Thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done
on Earth, as it is in Heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us.

Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

Someone please teach him proper spelling.

"In thee obseruation of quantitees of syllables, soom happlye wyl bee so stieflie tyed too thee ordinaunces of thee Latins, as what shal seeme too swarue from theyre maximes, they wyl not stick too skore vp for errours."

Help.

Bloody Greeks.

Granted, this is Marlowe's take on the story. I'm much amused,and thus quite disturbed at myself.

Dido: Live, false Aeneas! Truest Dido dies;
Sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras. (So, so, it is my choice to go beneath the shades_

Throws herself into the flames.

Anna: O, help, Iarbas! Dido in these flames
Hath burnt herself! Ay me, unhappy me!

Iarbas: Cursed Iarbas, die to expiate
The grief that tires upon thine inward soul! -
Dido, I come to thee. - Ay me, Aeneas!

Kills himself.

Anna: What can my tears or cries prevail me now?
Dido is dead!
Iarbas slain, Iarbas my dear love!
O sweet Iarbas, Anna's sole delight!
What fatal Destiny envies me thus,
To see my sweet Iarbas slay himself?
But Anna now shall honour thee in death,
And mix her blood with thine. This shall I do,
That gods and men may pity this my death,
And rue our ends, senseless of life or breath:
Now, sweet Iarbas, stay! I come to thee.

Kills herself.

And the idiot Aeneas who caused this whole suicide orgy sails away to become the founder of Rome. Bah.

Hello, friend.

Greetings from Trinity College, Cambridge. To those I promised to write to but havn't yet, I WILL, soon. I've only just about settled down and am slowly getting into the rhythm of things. (Things being wake up, bathe, make breakfast, convince self to go out of warm room, do whatever, lunch, try as much as possible to go back to warm room in between doing things that must be done, figuring out how to do dinner if hall is closed and, for the last couple of nights, go for fresher social stuff. Which is as detailed as I'm going to be about my after-dinner activities. No, I havn't touched alcohol, and no, that hasn't caused any detriment to my social life. Am quite pleasantly surprised really.)

Let's start from the very beginning shall we? (A very good place to start. When you read you begin with etc.) Arrived in Cambridge Tuesday morning...slept most of the flight, and much of the coach ride too. Stayed in a b&b in milton for 2 nights, and moved in on thursday. My room's tiny, but it's cosy. It's kind of like a small rectangular box. My bed's on the length, and it just about reaches the door, which is centimeters from the end of the lenght, and my bed's just right for me. Anyone taller than 1.65m would probably have cold toes in the morning. Either that or a cramp in their back. So that's an illustration of the length. It's got white sheets, with a maroon duvet. Looks kinda like my bed at home, so I was comfortable there almost immediately. Next to my bed is a little table with a lamp on it, and next to THAT is a bookcase, which slowly but surely will be filled with books I'm discovering :) So that covers the breadth. Parallel to my bed is my writing desk, and a nice tub chair...kinda like a sofa, but for one person. There's a smaller desk next to it, that's where I usually put the mac when I'm working on it, cuz it's next to the window and I get some nice sunlight. So from where I'm sitting: behind me's the wardrobe, and next to that's a cupboard containing a sink, and shelves where I've put detergent and stuff. Oh and between the cupboard and wardrobe is a fridge and a couple of shelves. I now have expired milk and stale bread in each, respectively. Must remember to eat/drink things before they go bad.

There are 6 people on my corridor, 3 on each side...3 girls and 3 boys, but I hardly ever see one of the girls. It's pretty cool, we've had corridor dinners (one of which was side-splittingly disastrous) and stuff. It's been social after social since I arrived, so I do know quite a few people by name, and quite a few more by face. International freshers' week was brilliant, and it's probably the reason why I'm as comfortable here as I am. And whoever said the British weren't friendly probably never attended a uni freshers' week, cuz everyone's trying to make friends (being alone and feeling lost gives one great incentive to do so) and as such are almost unfailingly friendly. Almost. Of course, it helps when there's alcohol around, and it's usually pretty amusing, but even when sober...

Okay, so where things to do with the reason why I'm here (which is to study, yes) are concerned, I met my director of studies, also known as a DOS today. And lectures start friday, whoopeee. No I'm serious. After a week of fresher social stuff, it's stabilizing to actually have real work to do. And real work I do have, since I need to read the Iliad by Monday. Woot. Oh and analyse some pc stuff too. Yay lit.

Signed up for a thousand and one societies, but will probably end up just going for the Amateur Dramatic Club and Fisher Society, which is the Catholic society here. In fact auditions for plays start this sat, so things are happening pretty fast.

Still need to read Paradise Lost. Eek.

Alright, this part is for those of you who came to send me off at the airport on Monday. You guys have no idea how much it meant to me. Everytime I'm minutely down, I look at the pictures we took and cheer up. So for your viewing pleasure:









Gosh I've put on weight, havn't I. Oh well. Have lost some since I arrived. Must be all the walking I'm doing...Cambridge is a lot bigger than it sounds. For example. last night after a party at the Soul Tree Club we decided to walk a friend back to Newnham College despite warnings of its distance, because our adrenaline-pumped selves didn't think far would be QUITE that far. Feet havn't quite forgiven me yet. And my body clock hates me. Regardless of the time I actually fall asleep, it WILL wake me up at 7am. Sharp. And there's only so much lying in bed hoping to fall back asleep one can do before one gives up and rolls out of bed to bathe. Sigh.

I'm doing great you guys, so don't worry. I have rough days (sorry zid), but in general, it's a brilliant experience. And I'll live. And learn.



With love, from Cambridge.