One More Time...
I've been meaning to update this for ages...
First up, three weeks ago, I had my Oxford interview, which I was so worried about. And also worried due to my girlfriend going to hospital, while at home in Bath. With nasty disease names like Hepatitis, etc getting knocked about. So I'd not been able to see her and just cuddle and relax, and I'd been stressed about this and Oxford. But there were great points. The Friday beforehand, I had a great night over at James, Owain and Tom's flat with Paddy and Stewart. Then a brilliant evening for Edwin's 30th in the Cellar, where the nickname "Jonny's mistress" for Emily got started. I had a brilliant 3 hour chat with Nicholas, who'd had about the most positive-sounding interview ever there a week previously, after his exam about everything, we discussed maths and lots of things. He said on leaving "I'd wish you good luck, but you don't need it. You're smart enough and just need to not let nerves get to you and relax and enjoy getting to talk to these professors." I knew he was right. All I needed to do was not let nerves get to me for the interview.
So naturally, I let nerves get to me in the interview, which was rather soul-crushing. It wasn't a total write-off, but I definitely could and should have done a lot better. Then, after some time when I'd not been able to sleep for ages due to stress, I crashed out away from the world in a Youth Hostel, before setting off the next day to Bath to see Sophie, who was out of hospital, but still with massively inflamed liver, Tonsillitis and, it eventually transpired, some glandular fever. She spent most of the time asleep, and I only stayed there, in her mum's house, for one night before heading back, because she was A) sleeping most of the time and B) infectious, so there was little point in being there.
Here I'd like to go off and comment on how ... interestingly I seem to do with relationships. Sophie and I, having been on a few dates since the end of November got together 8 days before she went home for Christmas. She is now seeming to be so ill that she's still not come back, having missed her exams, with glandular fever and doctors panicking over her liver. She's currently awake about 4-5 hours a day, and very tired all the time. This relationship's in a weird sort of stasis, but increasingly it looks like I might just have to wait a few months to pick up where we left off. And the elephant in the room we've not mentioned is that we might not ever be in town together simultaneously again. But we might be. In the meantime, things are just sort of on hold. Please note how it seems that I can never ever succeed in having a non-long-distance relationship.
I spent most of the rest of the break worrying about how few friends I might end up with or have, getting pretty depressed, which I didn't notice until Soph pointed it out, and going to James' to play Halo 3 and Lego Star Wars, with Stewart and Torben.
Things have been kinda down, but I'm now remembering to try to think positively again. I'm really rather worried and getting quite a bit of anxiety lately about the end of uni, how many or few friends will stay in touch with me, how things are going to end up with Sophie, how I've not heard back from anywhere yet, how I've got a massive project which I've barely started and I'm not able to do written work. I've got a talk to give next week which I've not written. How I seem to have too much empathy with the characters from Peep Show. How the Wire's ending, along with a lot of things. That time's passing.
But...
I'm doing my best to try and get past it. Be happy that I've got so many good friends, so many I don't even have one big group. That I've got Sophie who seems grateful that I'm here and is there for me when she's able to. That I seem to now regularly have a cute goth girl curling over me every Wednesday night at Go Club, where I know heaps of people. That I know I can, if I work, do some OK maths, and don't know where my limit is. That I'm going to get a PhD place somewhere. That I'm going to see No Country for Old Men, which is apparently excellent, with friends on Monday. That exam results came through, and, well:
MT4513Finite Mathematics19.3
MT5990Independent Study Module20.0*
... I couldn't have asked for more, given I messed up a 5 mark question on the 50 mark exam for Finite by forgetting 6 isn't a prime number.
*I've been assured that the questions were set too easy for this, and I know it's true.
It actually somehow bumps my average up to 18.9, and now it shouldn't be too hard at all to get a first, as long as I don't really really screw up the project.
Really now, all I need to do is apply myself to my 55 credits of courses, try and developing writing skills for my 40 credit project, try and get an application off to Birmingham, wait and try not to worry about next year, work out if I could stand staying here and watching friends leave, write a talk to be given on Friday, develop public speaking skills, stay in touch with my friends, try and make relationships which have been neglected better again, and above all, enjoy my remaining time as an undergraduate. But not so much that I don't work
I'm not going to be as down as I was last semester. I'm going to be the nice guy I apparently can be. And look forward to quitting the pills when these exams are over. I've bought the semester's stationary for the last time. And may be broke.
This should be fun.
First up, three weeks ago, I had my Oxford interview, which I was so worried about. And also worried due to my girlfriend going to hospital, while at home in Bath. With nasty disease names like Hepatitis, etc getting knocked about. So I'd not been able to see her and just cuddle and relax, and I'd been stressed about this and Oxford. But there were great points. The Friday beforehand, I had a great night over at James, Owain and Tom's flat with Paddy and Stewart. Then a brilliant evening for Edwin's 30th in the Cellar, where the nickname "Jonny's mistress" for Emily got started. I had a brilliant 3 hour chat with Nicholas, who'd had about the most positive-sounding interview ever there a week previously, after his exam about everything, we discussed maths and lots of things. He said on leaving "I'd wish you good luck, but you don't need it. You're smart enough and just need to not let nerves get to you and relax and enjoy getting to talk to these professors." I knew he was right. All I needed to do was not let nerves get to me for the interview.
So naturally, I let nerves get to me in the interview, which was rather soul-crushing. It wasn't a total write-off, but I definitely could and should have done a lot better. Then, after some time when I'd not been able to sleep for ages due to stress, I crashed out away from the world in a Youth Hostel, before setting off the next day to Bath to see Sophie, who was out of hospital, but still with massively inflamed liver, Tonsillitis and, it eventually transpired, some glandular fever. She spent most of the time asleep, and I only stayed there, in her mum's house, for one night before heading back, because she was A) sleeping most of the time and B) infectious, so there was little point in being there.
Here I'd like to go off and comment on how ... interestingly I seem to do with relationships. Sophie and I, having been on a few dates since the end of November got together 8 days before she went home for Christmas. She is now seeming to be so ill that she's still not come back, having missed her exams, with glandular fever and doctors panicking over her liver. She's currently awake about 4-5 hours a day, and very tired all the time. This relationship's in a weird sort of stasis, but increasingly it looks like I might just have to wait a few months to pick up where we left off. And the elephant in the room we've not mentioned is that we might not ever be in town together simultaneously again. But we might be. In the meantime, things are just sort of on hold. Please note how it seems that I can never ever succeed in having a non-long-distance relationship.
I spent most of the rest of the break worrying about how few friends I might end up with or have, getting pretty depressed, which I didn't notice until Soph pointed it out, and going to James' to play Halo 3 and Lego Star Wars, with Stewart and Torben.
Things have been kinda down, but I'm now remembering to try to think positively again. I'm really rather worried and getting quite a bit of anxiety lately about the end of uni, how many or few friends will stay in touch with me, how things are going to end up with Sophie, how I've not heard back from anywhere yet, how I've got a massive project which I've barely started and I'm not able to do written work. I've got a talk to give next week which I've not written. How I seem to have too much empathy with the characters from Peep Show. How the Wire's ending, along with a lot of things. That time's passing.
But...
I'm doing my best to try and get past it. Be happy that I've got so many good friends, so many I don't even have one big group. That I've got Sophie who seems grateful that I'm here and is there for me when she's able to. That I seem to now regularly have a cute goth girl curling over me every Wednesday night at Go Club, where I know heaps of people. That I know I can, if I work, do some OK maths, and don't know where my limit is. That I'm going to get a PhD place somewhere. That I'm going to see No Country for Old Men, which is apparently excellent, with friends on Monday. That exam results came through, and, well:
MT4513Finite Mathematics19.3
MT5990Independent Study Module20.0*
... I couldn't have asked for more, given I messed up a 5 mark question on the 50 mark exam for Finite by forgetting 6 isn't a prime number.
*I've been assured that the questions were set too easy for this, and I know it's true.
It actually somehow bumps my average up to 18.9, and now it shouldn't be too hard at all to get a first, as long as I don't really really screw up the project.
Really now, all I need to do is apply myself to my 55 credits of courses, try and developing writing skills for my 40 credit project, try and get an application off to Birmingham, wait and try not to worry about next year, work out if I could stand staying here and watching friends leave, write a talk to be given on Friday, develop public speaking skills, stay in touch with my friends, try and make relationships which have been neglected better again, and above all, enjoy my remaining time as an undergraduate. But not so much that I don't work
I'm not going to be as down as I was last semester. I'm going to be the nice guy I apparently can be. And look forward to quitting the pills when these exams are over. I've bought the semester's stationary for the last time. And may be broke.
This should be fun.