A Fresh Start

Things are plodding along fairly well at the moment, the thumps in the title are me nearly falling off my chair due to tiredness. Even the week by week plodding is pretty tiring, so adding in any kind of social life hits me that lil bit harder. Because of the seriousness of this final year of my studies, I can honestly say that I'm treating this practically like a 9 til 5. I'm probably studying not far off 40 hours a week, with those hours spread out over the 7 days each week. Its tough going but I'm hoping it'll be worth it!

I got two sets of marks back today, one from a presentation I gave last Monday about German reunification, I got 57% which is a high 2.2 which is what I've been predicted I'll get. A 2.1 is 60% so with a bit of luck I might manage to grab myself a 2.1. The other one was for a powerpoint presentation where I got 50%, in some ways I'm disappointed to have scored as low as I did, but then I agree with what the lecturer had said was the major downside to my presentation.

I'm tired this morning - my parents went away for the weekend because it was their 25th anniversary not so long ago and some of their friends paid for a few nights in a hotel in Wales. My brother went to my nan's house so I could have a bit of peace and quiet - I'm looking after him tonight, so I assumed that I'd do my best to go to bed at a reasonable time considering it's been a long week. Sadly that bit didn't go to plan and since the dog needs walking, here I am up a little earlier than I would have planned considering how late the night was.

You may (or may not) be aware that a beach ball scored a goal against Liverpool a few weeks ago -

- which I find pretty funny. What I find even funnier is that I've been given a German language news article on the game which I have to write a summary of. I guess it made it into worldwide sports news!

Halloween was fun, my brother went trick or treating, then my little cousins came around and we played some Halloween games. By "we" I mean my brother and my cousins; except for when it came to ducking for apples - me and my cousin (both of us 24!!) joined in, although our game was a little rougher than the kids' one haha! It was a fun night, as Halloween often is, and should be.

Yesterday after Uni, I went to a friend's house as I often do on a Tuesday, and as I often do on a Tuesday, I left his pretty late. We got playing on Mario Party on the Wii which was good fun, but we got so into it that it was nearly 1am before we realised. I'm not in until 1 today so its not so bad as I was able to lie in, I'll still be feeling it tomorrow though as late nights always hit me a day or two later.

At the moment I can say that I'm probably addicted to 3 things - watching House MD, playing Football Manager 2010 and playing Europa Universalis 3. Hugh Laurie is incredible in House - he's a complete and utter arse, but he still manages to be loveable which is quite a challenge.

Football Manager 2010 is the latest spreadsheet-based computer game/relationship breaker (game has caused 3 divorces and counting!) which every year breaks all computer game sales records and so has the people playing it totally addicted.

EU3 is a "conquer the world as Wales"-type game that I enjoy as it is based on a period in history which really grabs my attention - 1399 to 1820. In 1399 Europe was hardly aware of anything outside of Europe, and was divided into dozens of small city-states etc. By 1820 of course, we'd discovered some more stuff, the "New World", etc and things had changed dramatically.

This week has been a little difficult for me, in so far that its been annoying being in Uni while my family have been at home. My mum's been off sick and my dad and brother have their half-term. I didn't even see anyone on Monday morning as I left the house before anyone was awake. Last week I promised to take my brother to see the film Up! because the trailers that I had seen for it looked really good. My dad asked if he could come and in the end my mum came too; my brother was absolutely hyper with excitement so he's been pretty loud all week. After the film, they were all going to go to Ikea and then go out for a meal, I asked to come home - partly because I've got work to do for tomorrow, and partly so I could have a little peace and quiet from my brother.

After the excitement at the end of last week, ie presenation on Friday morning so I was up most of Thursday night putting it together; then going to a friend's house after the presentation and outstaying my welcome (was left waiting for more than an hour for the taxi) and then going to my cousin's engagement party on Saturday, this has been quite a low-key week which has been good as I've been able to catch up on sleep.

Commuting to uni has been a little easier this week because of the school's half-term. My bus route passes about half a dozen schools so the bus is often packed when I have my 9ams to get to, but this week the bus stayed relatively empty and therefore I got in quicker. That meant I was able to relax a little before class instead of the usual running from the bus into Uni only to walk in 5 minutes late.

I'm also feeling a shift towards studying more than I had in my second year of uni - I guess the seriousness of graduating next summer and the impact that my degree may affect the next 40-something years of my working life has hit me hard.

I overslept, I woke up at 9:30 when I should have been in uni for 10am - as it takes about 30 minutes to get the bus in I was going to be late even if I went to uni in my pjs! I was only due in for the one class this morning though so I've emailed the lecturer to apologise, but now I'm feeling a bit silly.

I guess now though it gives me longer to work on my presentation - I've got to meet up with 2 of the girls in one of my other classes later because we're doing a debate on Monday so need to work on our case. No comments about me being a master debator please as thats just immature !

I'm then off to a careers advice talk for jobs in the public sector - as I'm due to be graduating in the summer I need to start looking now. I've figured that I'd be best suited to some kind of office job as I can't really do any lifting or anything like that.

This sums up exactly how I'm feeling today, yet here I am studying! I've got a presentation first thing Friday morning so I've been working on that the last few days. I've also got a text summary to do for tomorrow, the text is here and as you can see, the text is in German and my summary has to be too!

I didn't get to bed until 1am this morning, which considering I was up at 7 maybe wasn't the best of ideas but I got into a good rhythm with studying so decided to keep it up, as it were. I got quite a bit done but I'm pretty tired - I've decided that rather than having an hour now, I'm gonna wait and just go to bed at 9pm or something to make up for it.

Yesterday's private blog was a knee-jerk reaction to the news - now I'm a little more used to the idea of my cousin's engagement, I'm not feeling jealous and so I'm just happy for them.

Today has been a pretty busy day, I've been studying a lot all day and I feel like I've achieved a lot in clearing the studyload for the next few days. Now I'm gonna do another hour or so studying, then I'll settle down in front of the TV with the family.