Merry Christmas

Apologies, as ever my friends, for I have been neglecting you of late. 3 months and 6 days since I last posted anything, and that was an insubstantial and somewhat whiny post as it was. I have no excuse, no reason to give, other than I have had nothing to say.

Christmas has come and gone, the number of roast dinners I have eaten this festive period would almost reach double figures; perhaps the one – only – benefit of have two families to please at Christmas time. I’m afriad I was a bit naughty on Christmas day, luckily Santa had already delivered his pressies so I got away with it. I had spoken to Dad on Christmas Eve you see, and we had made some vague plan that I would come round in the afternoon. I had expected him to call early to set a firm time, honestly I did, but when when he didn’t; well I made no effort to call him. In fact I let the whole day go by without troubling to contact him. I know, I was bad, but I didn’t really care to be honest. The only people I wanted to see on Christmas day was my mum, my dog, and Tom. We did have a neighbour round for lunch, her husband died last winter and, what with the snow, it wouldn’t really have been sensible for her to try and travel to see her family.

Ah yes, the snow, I must tell you about that. Quite some fun we’ve been having here in the north east. (For a second there I thought I shouldn’t tell you that, you would know where I am! Then I realized the days when I was anonymous are long gone.) Yes the snow. I didn’t have any trouble with it myself, but it’s been quite a pain for some. Actually I quite enjoyed it. Even driving in these treacherous conditions is a challenge I relish. Sometimes, if I’m feeling really adventurous, I’ll even try and get a bit of a slid going on the corners. Then I go and manage it, scare myself shitless and vow never to do it again!

Then we had new year. Following a tradition set down many years ago, Katharine had a party at her house. A civil affair you understand, parents attend as well as us young ‘hooligans’, but alcohol is consumed, merriment is made and a right good time is had by all. You must excuse me for going all woolly there, just I quite enjoy seeing everyone again. Then of course the parents go home and the hooligans (that’s us) set ourselves up for a night on the living room floor. A couple of people left for another friends house, every year she has a new year party too, I don’t think it would be unfair to call it a more raucous event. Every year it clashes with Katharine’s and every year some compromise is come to. Anyway, the loss of two of our number left 7 standing (actually we were lying down in our sleeping bags by this point I suppose). Eventually, it was sometime around 3 or 4am, it was just me and Amy left awake. She was having terrible trouble with the boy sleeping next to her, he was “a roller” you see, and kept rolling on top of her sleeping bag and giving her less and less space to sleep in. I could move over any because I had another girl lying the other side of me. I was really only awake at this point because I thought it rude to fall asleep and leave Amy alone with Mr Space Invader. No, far more polite to stay awake and laugh at her. Poor girl, probably just wanted me to shut up by the time we reached the early hours. Luckily I did in the end, although not before sleep deprivation almost made me do something quite stupid, something that I would have greatly regretted in the morning. I can say no more dear reader, for I fear both and Amy and possibly my mother read this blog, and I would rather neither knew to what I allude

Hope you have a prosperous new year, sincerely hope we speak again soon. x

Friday syndrome

Friday lectures were rather boring: Upper Respiratory Tract Infections, one for adults, one for children. They were in the worst lecture theatre we have too, it’s uncomfortable, cold and the projector occasionally turns everything shades of blue. Then it was off to the A&E tutorial room for a session revising examination of the lower limb. We had the nice Australian registrar teaching us again, and I was volunteered to be the patient, not that I mind.

I had been aiming to work for the 2 hours before our last lecture, but instead I had an extended lunch and by 12:30pm we had discovered the lecturer was in London so wasn’t going to be giving us a lecture at 2pm anyway. The plan had been for Becky and I to go into town and get a Starbucks after the last lecture, but since it was cancelled I suggested we go and revise in the library for a few hours.

It took all of 15 minutes before I remembered why I hate studying in the library. It’s full of people, but so oppressively quiet that I’m afraid to even turn the pages of my notes for fear of disturbing someone. Combine that with a positivity tropical room temperature and I wasn’t taking anything in. I mean, it’s like 6°C outside so I’m all wrapped up, in there it feels about 25°C, it was like being in an oven. Becky actually put it very well:

PC: stressed, tired, headachey. Dx: Friday syndrome. Rx: Starbucks.

After about 50 minutes I had given up, but how to ask Becky if she wanted to call it a day? The atmosphere in that library precluded even a few whispered words, and I wasn’t even that keen on writing a note for fear that the rustling of moving paper would earn me a stern look from someone. I though about sending a text, but what if she didn’t notice? The length of time I agonized over this decision is testament to my mental state at the time. My stroke of genius was to type it out on my iPhone and past it across the table. This worked well, although there was a moment of panic when Becky almost dropped my iPhone on the table. I have no doubt this extremely noisy action would have resulted in us both being physically thrown out the window (we were on the 3^rd floor).

On the short drive into the centre of town I explained all the minor faults my car has picked up over the years, “the brakes aren’t that great… the windscreen is effectively being held together by a sticker… the central locking just stopped working (I suspect cause of the cold since it’s back now, albeit intermittently)… driver’s door, not the best…” forgot to mention the minor oil leak too. Still, we got there without incident, despite our route including the Mounthooly roundabout. The number of accidents, incidents and near misses I’ve both witnessed and been involved in beggars belief. I should add I’ve never had an accident in my car, the only thing I’ve ever done is drive into the telegraph pole on our street, at about 2mph, while parallel parking. It was a case of, “oops, seems my car is a bit longer than I though,” there wasn’t a scratch on anything. In fact, touch wood, the last time I was in a road accident of any kind was years ago, I would have only been 7 or 8 when we were rear-ended at a junction. Although Catriona nearly changed that over the holidays. Oops, I wasn’t supposed to talk about that.

We got our coffees and sat at the same table by the window where Julie and I sat last year. Back then we were studying the respiratory system for the first time, we sat with our notes trying to make sense of Prof Cotter’s mad drawings. Once again, my choice of an iced drink was questioned, considering the afore mentioned single digit temperatures. After that, I’m not quite sure what we talked about for over 2 hours, although I suspect Medicine might have come up once or twice. Other than that, I was simply left with an overwhelming sense that I should like to meet Becky’s dad, he sounds like an interesting fellow. My dad, a far less interesting fellow, waited for 15 minutes in the cold just 10 metres down the street. He was under the impression I was going to sweep by with my car and pick him up. When I said “I’ll meet you at Starbucks,” what I mean was, “I’ll meet you in Starbucks.” This way he got to meet Becky anyway. He began with his preferred opening shot, “so where’s home?” This is a favourite because 9 times out of 10 he can then reply, “oh, I’ve been there, visited x, y, z.” We walked back to the car car and Becky refused my offer of a lift home, perhaps the journey in had been more traumatic than I thought? The drive back to dad’s was fine, I seem to be able to drive with other people in the car now, I used to get nervous for some reason.

Tara brought us back fish and chips for tea. I do not wish to give you the wrong ideas about her culinary abilities, she can most definitely cook, and only gave me fish and chips because I specifically requested it. Then I was asked to put my marketing hat on and design invitations for a coffee morning Tara was organising to raise money for Haiti. I was happy to as it gave me an excuse to escape to the study rather than sit in the living room watching all the soaps. Of course, dad has a PC in his office, so I was reduced to Windows XP and Office Word 2003. The temptation to but the mouse through the monitor, the keyboard through the CPU and throw the whole thing out the window was hard to resist. Still, we got there in the end, then I had to wrestle with a temperamental printer, but then, is there any other kind? They all seem to come with built in attitude. I escaped the evening with a couple of melt in the middle chocolate puddings Tara had bought but I was too full to eat.

Then it was a quick dash back to the flat to grab things I’d need for Saturday, before heading for home.

As a side note, I passed an RRU, abandoned and empty in a lay-by just the far side of Westhill. There are two other cars in the same lay-by. No damage to any other them and no police, so I doubt an RTC. I guess it was a medical call and the RRU pilot jumped in the back of the ambulance for the ride to hospital. Although I don’t even understand why an RRU would have been dispatched, unless it was on standby in Westhill. The ambulance station is on the west side of the city, I drove right past it to come home; unless there were no other units available an ambulance would have been just as fast at 11pm, the roads are empty. Guess I’ll never know.

Problems

I have a problem.

Well, I have many problems, but let’s just focus on one for now. My problem is I can’t study, specifically I can’t study at home. There are places where I really like studying. The Matthew Hay building, much as I might complaint about it’s ‘official’ name of “The Suttie Centre for Teaching and Learning in Healthcare” (yeah, don’t even get me started); about how there are no hand driers in the male toilets on the 1^st floor [Ed: Fixed, although there are now no mirrors??]; and about how they’ve left an entire internal wall as bare concrete, not even a coat of paint; I actually really like the place. In fact, I’m really tempted to take my video camera in one day I’m staying late and just walk around with it. It looks amazing at night, it’s peaceful and open, well lit and beautifully architectured. I find the whole place very conducive to study. I have my favourite spot, it’s in the back corner of the first floor (hence the problem with the absent hand driers), with my back to the dark window, looking out across the inside of the building: the sculpture, the art, the shadows cast by the up- and down-lighting. I don’t mind studying in the computer room either. It is on the ground floor with two walls floor to ceiling glass, again looking out onto the dark night and the hospital grounds lit up around you. It reminds me why I’m here; I think of all the patients settling down to sleep on wards, the duty anaesthetist doing a solitary ward round on ITU, the StR in A&E preparing for the long night shift. It’s also a great help that the desks have plenty of space, you can shove the keyboard out the way and really spread out. I don’t really like working in the café area, I associate it too much with socializing, but at a push…

The whole thing just makes me feel at ease and relaxed. I can sit down for a solid 2 hours when it’s quiet and just write. I know many of you are probably thinking, “pft! 2 hours? so what?” Well for me, that’s a pretty decent study session. I used to have trouble lasting more than 45 minutes with my head in the books, and that was assuming I got past the first, fidgety, five minutes. So getting in a couple of hours, then being able to go back again after a quick twitter/blog reading/coffee break is actually quite monumental for me.

The problem arises if I have to go off and do something else then go home. Today it was because I agreed to help Becky pick up a bookcase from Argos and take it to her flat; having a car does have it’s disadvantages, not that I mind really. It seemed stupid to go straight back to the hospital having just left, so I told myself I’d go home and force myself to study. Would you like to guess what happened? Bugger all studying, that’s for sure. Okay, in 4 hours I wrote up one lecture. It wasn’t even like I was paraphrasing the information, I was just copying from the notes I made in the lecture to a more structured form. I did everything I could to avoid iworking. I faffed. I watched the last 30 minutes of a movie I started watching yesterday. I caught up on blog reading. I though about reading a book, but didn’t quite. I even got to the point that I just couldn’t figure out what else I could do to avoid studying, so I just threw myself on to my bed, pulled the covers over my head and lay there for a few minutes. I realize this probably isn’t ‘normal’ behaviour, but when I get into these kind of desperate moods I’m not really good for much else. Anyway, we can discuss whether I actually have a mental illness another time. There is, I think, a reason I find it so hard to work at home. It boils down to the fact it isn’t really ‘home’.

It’s like when I was studying for my Highers back at school. I told Dad many times that I couldn’t come over for the weekend as I usually did because I needed to study. He always suggested I just bring my books and work at his house. He doesn’t really understand the system. First off, I need to set up a place to study, I can’t just plonk down anywhere and pull out the books. I need a location that’s just right, with everything I need within easy reach, and just enough distractions to amuse me when I tire of work, but not too many, otherwise I never go back to work. The other problem is I need to be in a place where I feel comfortable and relaxed, hence why I made such a big deal about these things when talking about Matthew Hay. These are certainly not emotions I feel when I’m at Dad’s house. Mum understands that when I disappear behind that door, nothing short of a nuclear winter is sufficient excuse to disturb me. I need to get into the zone, and it’s very ease for me to fall out of the zone. I just couldn’t achieve that zen-esque state at Dad’s house, and I can’t achieve it at my flat now. I’m just not comfy enough. I’m always slightly on edge, that I might be called upon or spoken to. It’s not ‘stressful’ in the conventional sense of the word living here, but nor is it a place I can really chill out in either. I know this is a problem, and if I though I could do something about it I would, but I don’t think I can. Perhaps with time it might feel more like a home to me, but not any time soon. The cats, particularly, stress me out completely out of proportion to their size. I’m an animal lover, I adore them all, but I have never come across a pair of animals I have more wanted to kick than these cats. Rest assured I never would, kicking an animal is an absolutely abhorrent act to me, I would honestly rather kick my best friend in the face than kick an animal. This does not seem to preclude me from fantasising about causing these cats considerable discomfort. It is very strange, I cannot explain it, I have never met an animal I actively dislike before. There have been those that I am ambivalent towards, those who weren’t exactly my favourite, but never a true dislike. I have a friend from school who really dislikes dogs. All dogs for some reason, he’s very much a cat person, and I just never got it before. Now I do. Everything they do annoys me.

I know that by this point some of you are probably thinking, “wow dude, just chill out. Don’t worry about it!” Has there ever been a less helpful response?? If I could just “chill out”, don’t you think I would? I am normally a difficult person to offend and a difficult person to rile. When I flip, I usually loose it big time. It’s not a pretty sight and afterwards I’m always sorry that I did, but in that moment seeing the look on the person’s face as I shout them down in front of a room full of people is worth any price. I have been more irritable of late and I’m sorry for that, it’s no one’s fault and as usual the people who deserve it least have to put up with my abruptness the most; just tell me to buck up and get a coffee. Even better, bring me a coffee and I promise to be nice to you for at least 12 hours! This whole thing is probably because I’m making an effort to care more about studying, and because situation and my psyche conspire against me to make that difficult, I start getting flustered about that which I would normally not care about. I realize this is a far from ideal situation, and as I’ve been saying these past few days, I’m either going to work myself in to the ground or just adapt to this new level of intensity. Then I might stop jumping down people’s throats and going quiet and moody because of stupid little things. Hey, I might even start being a half decent boyfriend again, but let’s not get our hopes up, eh? Several years of past experience would suggest it’s highly unlikely that’s going to happen on it’s own, I usually need to be shouted at.

“It’s not rustic”

I do often wonder why I even bother to pick up the phone when I see it’s my step mum-calling. I guess I just can’t shake the feeling that it might be important. I did consider just letting it ring tonight, but then she’s never called at 10pm before, so I thought someone might be dead/dying. Nothing so exciting I’m afriad.

No, she wanted to invite me on a ‘long weekend’. I zoned out on the details, something about the opportunity to get a 5 bed cottage down south somewhere for free, I don’t think she mentioned how; friend of a friend most likely. Yeah, anyway, the prospect didn’t sound too appealing. I’ve tried to avoid going away with my dad and step-family wherever possible, it helps that I’m actually old enough for it to be reasonable to refuse now. As she described it, it struck me how poorly she knows me.

First off she said there’s loads to do. Hmmm, heard that one before and I’ve generally found that the ‘loads of things’ to do are often not to my tastes. She did go on to elaborate: fishing. When have I ever shown even the semblance of an interest in fishing. Never. As a means to get food, as a survival method, certainly, fish away. But simply for the sake of fishing? To be honest I’d rather stay inside and play a fishing game on my iPhone that actually go outside and fish! That was the only example of things to do she could come up with then and there. I was doing my best to concoct a plausible way of getting out of it then and there to enquire further.

Next she seemed to want to allay any fears I had about the comfort of our stay. “It’s luxurious,” she intoned, “not rustic or anything… certainly not like camping *small out-pouring of breath intended to indicate amusement or frivolity*.” Yes well, it must have escaped her notice that I was in the Scouts for several years and I actually quite enjoy camping. In fact it would have amused me greatly if we had pitched up at this cabin to find it was half-way up a mountain and the only running water was the stream on the other side of the field. I would even go so far as to say it would probably be the most enjoyable family holiday I’d ever been on, to see my mod-con-home-comfort-loving-townie step family slog it without electricity for a ‘long weekend’.

I think we need a new definition for the term ‘city break’. Why would you want to escape the daily noise and grind of your big city life for the noise and grind of a different city. I know they say “a change is as good as a holiday”, but why not have both a change and a proper holiday? So I propose we redefine a ‘city break’ as a break from the city, all cities. Get out in to the wild. Go walking, cycling, kayaking, camping, etc. Get some clean air in your lungs! Anyway, I digress.

I tried to sound as disinterested as possible on the phone, was totally no committal and said I would “think about it”, which means “no, but I need time to come up with a suitable excuse.” Luckily all this isn’t scheduled to happen until June, so I’m sure I can think of something along the lines of “oh, unfortunately I’m x-y-z that weekend, next time though”.

If only that was the end of it. No, she was still intent on soliciting my company this Friday. “I’m going to the cinema with Amy,” I responded with what I hoped was a voice conveying excitement barely concealed by a forced coolness. Perhaps she might pick up on this and think it was something more…. No.
“Perhaps we could meet up,” was her overtly cheery reply. Exasperated, I made as direct an inference as I dared towards this being a date (sorry Amy, it was necessary). I had to be careful to leave myself enough room to manoeuvre if I was questioned directly. She showed no interest in knowing who Amy is, so I neglected to mention that I’ve know here for years, or the fact a third person was coming with us. I know, I’m terribly devious. Still she was unperturbed. Unable to keep the contempt in my voice fully hidden now, I played my Ace.
“We’re going to see Star Trek…”
“Oh, yuk!” Yes, I was rather hoping to evoke that response.

The master escapes once again.

Gettin’ my Groove on

Before we do anything else, exciting news (for me anyway); I switched over from Pay As You Go to a Monthly Contract on Sunday. I hadn’t realised quite how much I’d been topping up per month lately, it always felt there was some special reason that I was using my phone more than normal. Trouble is that thing lasted for the last 4 months, so it looks like that’s just how it’s gonna be. This new contract will work out much cheaper; plus I get mobile internet. Try as I might before, I couldn’t get the iPhone to conect to the net with a PAYG sim. Now with my contract I have access to both GPRS and EDGE networks almost anywhere. To start with I’m on an ad hoc data plan that means I never pay more than £1.00 per day for mobile internet (and that’s a lot by the way, I won’t be reaching that very often… at all). We’ll see how it goes, I have the option of switching to a £7.50 per month flat rate for unlimited use if that turns out to be cheaper, which I find unlikely. Right, now I’ve got that off my chest…

We’re back and we’re rockin’. Much as I enjoyed my week off (humff, not much of a break actually, more on that to come) it’s good to be back. I sat down in my first lecture at 9am, Monday morning and my thoughts weren’t:

“oh great, here we go again,”

they were:

“*sigh* I missed this,”

followed a microsecond later with:

“I shouldn’t be thinking that; I am so gay.”

I’m not saying I didn’t want the time off, I’m glad I did. I feel for the people who didn’t finish their exams until 5pm Friday and started their next classes on Monday (Gemma). But there’s nothing quite like getting back in the groove. I enjoy it. You all know I do. I complain bitterly about how the Medics are hated by the university and they give us such a raw deal and we never get the chance to stop and we’re always working, etc. etc.; but deep down I love it. I can’t stand not to be busy. If I have a defined period for ‘rest’, like I did last week, I worry that I’m not using it to it’s full. I worry I’m not doing ‘relaxing things’ in my time off. Term time gives me direction; a goal and a target.

To carry on talking about my week off, it went as follows:
Monday work in Library for 2 hours on community course tutorial stuff.
Tuesday Community Course all morning, results posted in afternoon followed by shopping.
Wednesday Family Visit and lost iPhone for 3 hours, much stress.
Thursday and Friday I had properly off and to myself.

It wasn’t even that the things I had to do filled my days, I was just that if you have morning things you have to get up, you have to be smart. Even one thing in the middle of the day spoils a whole 12 hours of carefully planned relaxation. My idea had been to read pretty solidly for the whole week, I read exactly zero pages of my novel.

The weekend I spent with Gemma being lazy and genuinely relaxing for the first time. I just wish she could have done the same instead of having to worry about all the things she had to do before Monday. Sunday we both went home for a home cooked meal. Mum was pretty stressed, but ok. The roast was lovely even if she did cheat on the Yorkkies.

The week so far has been enjoyable. Endocrinology is pretty good and is setting the tone for what should be a much more interesting term. I like our endocrine lecturer, Mr. Fowler, lot of other people don’t though. (The fact he has a PDA and does lectures from a MacBook has nothing to do with my opinion of him…..)

The community course poster is proving hellish. We’ve got a meeting 1-2 on Thursday, so I’ll have to have all my research done my then. My topic? “Male aspects of Puberty with a view to describing the lifestyle and health changes during the period of adolescence.” Yeah, and I was handing out the topics, why I couldn’t have taken drink and drugs. As a topic I mean, I could take those things if I so desired, but I doubt it would help my grades.

Gemma and I are on a ‘break’ right now, what ever that means. Long story, basically we need space to consider where we are and what exactly our relationship means. I know that sounds like a lot of crap, and so it should, but this isn’t one of those ‘we’re obviously going to break up but we’re trying to pretend that it isn’t going to happen and delay the heart break for as long as possible’ kind of things. At least I hope it isn’t. To be honest, I doubt that to the casual observer there would appear to be much difference…. where have I seen that before? Either way, I can at least envision us recovering, so all can’t be lost yet.

Lunch with Sarah tomorrow, finally a chance to catch up like we’ve been saying we would for weeks. Then afternoon and dinner with dad and Tara. I would really appreciate the time to do more poster research, but considering I haven’t seen him since the 29^th of December I think it’s best I cut my loses and do it. Hell, I don’t care, but it’s just one of those things that has to be endured. It also means I can’t go to the Atheist society pizza and discussion night tomorrow, I don’t think I’ll be back in time. Shame, I feel up for a philosophical debate about now (“now” being 1:11am on Wednesday morning. I don’t often get insomnia, and it isn’t even that I can’t sleep, it’s that I don’t want to. I feel like doing something and I know I can probably get away with another sleep-lite™ night.)

There’s more photo posts in the pipeline and I will be getting back to my sunset series, it’s just a case of taking the first photo then I’ll be forced to keep taking them. Quotes posts should be back on normal schedule too, 22:10 every Sunday, put it in your diary.

Oh and just before I go; loving the weather. London on it’s knees, you have to laugh. I know it’s a once-every-twenty-years event, and I do feel for them, but it doesn’t stop me giggling a bit too. Up here it’s been rain rain rain. Coming back on Monday night was a nice level, somewhere between heavy drizzle and rain. I genuinely love that weather. A bit of wind to lift your hair, quiet night, not too cold, dry place waiting for you. It isn’t exactly unbeatable, but it’s in the top 5.

1 day to go

or more accurately, 1hr 13mins.

I’m sitting downstairs in front of the fire. The TV is off; the room smells of the Christmas tree twinkling in the corner; the dog is lying on my feet; iTunes is playing soothing Christmas music. I guess one could say “all is quiet”, and indeed it is; Mum has just left for church.

You will notice that I am still here, however. It was not a decision I took lightly, which I know might surprise some of you. But when you think about it, who wants to be alone when the hour of midnight ticks over? No one, and certainly not by choice, surely?

I have been to church to sing every Christmas Eve I can remember. And that’s just it, that’s why we’ve always gone, to sing, not to worship. But we’re singing praises to God, which is a little contradictory. I can remember very clearly that I was sitting in the hairdressers in Alford last year, before school broke up for Christmas. I got the appointment time wrong, I was fifteen minutes early, so I had plenty of time to wait. Radio 2 was on in the back ground, Richard Dawkins was debating with the presenter about why it was okay for ‘non-believers’ to go to church on the 24th and sing carols. Can’t remember anything of what he said now, but I remember the moment very clearly. So should I have gone? Not becuase Dawkins said it was alright, I respect him but I don’t treat his word as (forgive me) gospel.

One of the main points, for me anyway, about being an atheist (agnostic if you want to get technical) is that I can do what I want to. Within reason of course, but there isn’t anyone or anything telling me how to live my life. And ironically I have to keep reminding myself of that when I make decisions about this sort of thing: do I go to church on Christmas Eve as I always have; do I take Gemma up on her offer of going to church one Sunday; just how many CU events can I attend. I need to remember that I can do these things if I want to, my atheism isn’t stopping me, I’m just going for different reasons. I’m going because I want to be with my mum when Christmas arrives; I’m going because I think it’s important that I understand Gemma’s belief; I can go to as many CU events as I bloody well want to!

It isn’t easy to have this belief system, which annoys me, because it should be the easiest thing in the world not to believe anything at all. I have to constantly be on my guard against turning to what has been branded evangelical atheism, or as George Orwell put it:

“He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.”

I can do what ever the hell I want, and if that means going to church then I will, just because I can. So why then did I decide to stay here and not go with mum this evening. Well I wish I’d started writing this post about half an hour earlier, because it’s just struck me that I made the wrong choice.

Merry Christmas everyone.

6 days to go

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve last posted. It’s not really been a week conducive to blogging. All week I’ve been feeling tired by the end of classes, still throwing off the end of this infection I guess, and I haven’t felt like sitting down to write. Indeed, what I have been doing is re-discovering my love of Star Wars: Battlefront II. I’ve had to start out from the beginning of course, because I’ve been playing on my Mac. Playing through Bootcamp does detract from the performance a bit so I’ve had to play with all the graphics settings turned right down. But I don’t mind, as long as I get to play without it crashing every 5 seconds. Although, sure as eggs are eggs, I completed a really difficult level which I haven’t managed to before, and was so excited to be on to a new level that I hadn’t even seen before I hit ‘Continue without saving’ instead of ‘Save’. There’s no was to go back and save afterwards, you have to do it between levels. “That’s ok,” I thought, I’m on a role, I’ll just play through this level and save afterwards.

*Crash*

“Aww {expletive deleted},” was rather what I thought. No warning, no freeze, just straight close and exit. One minute I’m blasting Republic Transports out the sky, the next I’m staring at the sky! (Windows still has its default background of rolling green field and blue sky.) It was an effort not to put something through the screen. Still, it’s all fine, I’ll just have to play the level again. I can transfer the save files to my laptop when I get home and play it with the graphics turned up a bit; eye candy. And the chances of crash should be mildly reduced as well.

I took Gemma to the airport this morning. I’m not very good with goodbyes, but we managed. I went and filled up with petrol and checked my tyre pressures like mum wanted afterwards. Petrol was cheap, which is good, and I’ve got a full tank to see me through the Christmas season; even if I am driving assorted tipsy relatives here, there and everywhere. And all my tyre pressures were fine, even that nearside front one that looks totally flat, it’s actually at pressure. Apart from anatomy I was quite at liberty to spend the whole day in my room gaming and watching Futurama and Star Trek; which is what I did! I meant to read for a bit, but I couldn;t summon the effort to be bothered. Maybe tomorrow, but then I have to pack tomorrow. And it would make sense to get mum’s Christmas present tomorrow as well since I won’t be back in town for anything else before the big day, it would be efficient to get it while I’m already here. Then in the evening I’m being taken to ‘Carols by Candlelight’ at the Music Hall. I shall read to you what it says in the guide:

“Herald Christmas in the most elegant way with this joyous concert of carold (sic) and seasonal classics presented with all the grace and charm of the 18th century in an evocative candle-lit setting. Highlights include Mozart’s Laudate Dominum sung by soprano Elizabeth Cragg, and the Christmas sequence from Handel’s Messiah. Join in with well-loved carols including Hark! the Herald Angels Sing and O Come, All Ye Faithful, all accompanied by the Mozart Festival Orchestra (in period costume) with conductor David Hill.”

Grand. The grammar in that first sentence is rather messy too. And do they mean ‘carold’? Is that some kind of archaic terminology that I’m not familiar with, or a typo. To be fair, I am familiar with a lot of archaic phrasings.

Look, I’m sure this Carols by Candlelight will be lovely, I’m just not it the mood for spending a couple of hours with the Witch and her mother, singing. No doubt it will be too cold outside and too hot inside. *sigh* I agreed I suppose, but only to get them off my back. I though an evening listening to someone else was better than risking refusing then being forced in to some other event that would require my active participation in prolonged conversation. Oh, and Christmas day is all worked out too, I’ll be eating at a decent hour (i.e. around 3pm) with Mum, Mike and Catty at Mike’s. So there’ll be good food and enjoyable company. I’m not having to tolerate another Christmas dinner at Dad’s because they’re eating at midday for some reason, I can’t remember why it was.

While I remember, there has been one advantage to me feeling tired, I’ve been going to bed between 9 and 10, then listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for an hour (or until 11, which ever come sooner). It’s been great fun getting back in to it, and it’s really making me want to read the Deathly Hallows again; or at least get them on CD and listen to them. That was going to go on to my Christmas list, until I realised I should get people to buy me more expensive things then I can buy that. It just makes more sense, I end up with the same stuff, but I spend less money; genius. I am, naturally, very curious to know what lies beneath the three layers of paper covering Gemma’s present to me, and what the notes say between each layer. Only a few more days to wait!

Halloween 2

Hello everyone; and first of all, welcome to the month of November. It’s a month of toffee apples and bonfires; shortening days and lengthening nights (well duh); as well as a general shrinkage in the temperature figures.

I made it back from a halloween out in Aberdeen with absolutely no drunk people to deal with. It was really rather pleasant. We went out at about seven, first to the Union then on to Sin for drinking and dancing. I hasten to add that I was engaging in plenty of the latter, but only a little of the former. The reason for my drinking was rather specific but I’m not allowed to tell anyone what it is even though Liz gets to tell Jill, her little sister and her boyfriend. It’s hardly fair. There were 5 people witness to said event: me, Liz, Kelso, Toby and Leo. Words cannot describe to you quite how disturbed I was at what I saw.

Moving on to something quite equally as shocking, but this one I can talk all about: Mark’s behaviour. Firstly, he got drunk before we even left the Union. At least everyone else waited until we had made the 10 metre trek up the hill to Sin. Then, and it’s crucial to remember he is in a pimp costume at this point, he starts reeling in the girls. It’s quite fascinating to watch, in the same way a car crash is fascinating to watch, just how he does it. I can’t work it out, they just seem to gravitate towards him like he’s some giant black hole and they are all poor, innocent passing photons. By about 11pm, he is kissing two 22 year old girls….. at the same time! He then proceeds to do a pole dance with the two of them, kissing intermittently. This continues for some time.

They then decide to go to Slain’s, and that’s the last we saw of them. For all I know he could be lying in a ditch somewhere (perhaps still with the girls, perhaps not). We lost people here and there, so when we came back it was just me, Kevin, Timmy, John, Liz and Kelso. Then off to bed really.

So I had a good night, helped along no end by the fact I wasn’t dragging anyone home. Oh, I also came up with a good analogy for describing the effects of alcohol in terms of post-synaptic potentials. Additionally, I’m pleased to announce the bible made it back in one piece, and I bet that’s the most action that bible’s ever seen, cause I never put it down the whole time I was dancing. Unfortunately, although ‘my’ bible made it home safely, Leo’s was not blessed with such a rosy outcome and is now in the great big book shop in the sky.

Religion, becuase I like to start with the small issues.

One of the most profound effects university has had on me has been my view of religion, let’s start at the beginning, a very good place to start:

I’m not actually quite sure what my parents believe; they just kind of ignored the whole religion thing I guess. We went to church on Christmas eve to sing the carols, but that was for the singing, not the religion. Certainly my mum never had a problem with my atheism, so long as I was tolerant of other belief systems, which I am, she wouldn’t really mind what I believed. As to my dad, well the less said about that the better, suffice it to say that he married a devout christian, and I think he just goes along with everything to keep her happy, as he does in most things. Still, he doesn’t go to church either; but I do despair sometimes… anyway the less said the better!

Anyway, on to the reason we’re here; how I think. Well, I went along with the whole religion thing just because I didn’t really see how it effected me. Then I went through the whole religion is evil thing, I read Dawkins, said a lot of stuff to people that I didn’t really have any business saying, and generally thought I knew a whole lot more than I actually did.

Then I came here, and I met some Christians. I met the yellow clad CU ones [Ed: Christian Union, a very big and powerful student society at my Uni who wear yellow T-Shirts. Seriously, when I first arrived I actually thought they were part of the Uni offical welcome team cause they were all over the place.], the liberal ones, and the one in particular that became my friend. I came to realise that actually I’d been deluding myself about my disapproval of religion almost as much as I had formally been about my belief in the whole thing. Sure, many of my basic feelings didn’t change, but the reasons I felt them sure as hell did. This post is long enough without me going in to detail about what exactly happened to change my mind (I know, you were all looking forward to it sooo much, another time then) but I will say I decided to get clued up.

I think (and after all since we can never have certain knowledge, I’m open to being corrected on this) I’m technically an agnostic, in that if God tapped me on the shoulder right now I might buck up my ideas, I’m a scientist after all, I can’t ignore evidence. However, I prefer the term atheist because it more exactly conveys to Joe-Bloggs-on-the-street what I think; God, in any form, doesn’t exist, no question about it. (Speaking to a certain religious someone, turns out God would never do that because he gave us free will so it would defeat the purpose of the whole thing if He took away the mystery. Cop out? I’ll let you decide.)

I’m also a metaphysical naturalist, in that I believe everything is a component of nature (naturalist bit) and that everything in nature is within the bounds of science to explain (metaphysical bit). Now, I’m perfectly confidant that there are things that science hasn’t found yet. I have personal experience of animals, horses particularly, knowing things they just couldn’t tell from the 5 traditional senses. Do I believe in telepathy, telekinesis and all that jazz? No, but there’s something, it’s quarks or the Higgs Boson or an as yet undiscovered or theorised about particle, but it’s there. Crucially, unlike Philosophical Naturalists, I believe this is part of nature and science can explain it, just hope I’m still around when they do.

Finally I’m a secular (you’d have never guessed would you?) humanist. I’m wary of humanism, and I’m not quite sure why. Yes, I believe in a “life stance that upholds human reason, ethics, and justice, and rejects supernaturalism, pseudoscience, and superstition” (Wikipedia) but something just doesn’t make me sure I want to go shouting from the rooftops that I’m a humanist just quite as much as I do about my atheism (agnosticism). We’ll see how that one pans out I suppose.

Beyond that I believe in tolerance, freedom of speech and chocolate chip cookies. Mmmmm…