its over

Finally! Term 2 with its many travesties and trivialities has reached its end. As I burn my many handbooks to fend off the impending chill (both a meteorological remark and metaphorical reference to my exams), I can only reflect on how fast time has passed. I'm getting used to this place. Something I thought I'd never say.

And my exams....sigh. I know I could have worked a lot more, but I think I did fairly acceptably for it. Stupid thing was...the paper ended at 11.15, but I thought it ended at 11.45. Disaster to the max. Left out quite a few MCQ questions like that...like 15 out of 260 marks. Ended up guessing. Which is kinda scary, since the paper is negatively marked and all.

But I'm glad its over for now.

Just a little picture I took in Hyde Park last week that I wanted to share...from the board "Thing's to look out for!". And I must add that these bird feeders are not British. Get it? Nevermind.

Bah

After having seen the delirious fun that my three 'friends' had without me (although thanks for that poster pic!), I've been prompted to post my OWN adventure, to show that my life hasn't been completely uneventful. Well...to convince myself, at any rate!

To the three of you, I think Jo expresses better than I ever can how I feel right now.

Aaaaaaaaaand she's going to kill me for putting that picture up.

But seriously! While them three were hetting it up at the Falls, I had a blast of a time in York! Pictures will prove that I ALSO had access to Krispy Kremes, although bringing them all the way from London shortened their shelf-life considerably.

That's...well...me, Jo, and her flatmates in one of the flats, gorging ourselves on the sweet delights of Krispy Kremes, although poor Charlotte (Right photo, on the left) gave them up for Lent.

And thats us in one of the pubs, gradually getting soused. Well...I gradually got soused anyway, but I've also discovered my alcohol tolerance isn't as low as I previously thought it was!

I know this post is kinda text-skinny, but I have exams coming up in less than a week now. So Ima going to have to scoot. I didn't get the chance to maul 'That Lonesome Road' while walking along snow-strewn streets, but I DID get to go for a rehearsal of Mozart's Requiem! Jo is just so damn lucky la...

So in signing off, I leave you, David + Enoch + Bert with one final picture.

(P.S. If you couldn't already tell, I'm hugely jealous, and I wish I was there.)

another day

I can't seem to stop blogging...any little distraction that grants me respite from the endless toil of revision seems preferable right now.

So...funny thing happened today in school. Just chatting with this random girl who I know stays in halls, and we were moaning about revision and how much we hadn't done and yada yada, and the conversation turned (as conversations will) to the state of our rooms.

Me: My room is getting really gross.

She: Tell me about it! My bed is messy like you wouldn't believe!

Me: Huh? Why don't you just clean it up?

She: Oh no...I do most of my work lying down.

Now...it took EVERY IOTA of self-control (and gentlemanly valour!) within not to respond to this. And I basked in the warm satisfaction of my new-found maturity for the next half hour or so. Go me!

And I have fallen completely in love with the smell of clean laundry...it's been so long, I'd forgotten what it was like. Ahhh...

omg

I didn't really want to post, but when I came across this, my fate was sealed.

There was no way I could go to sleep not posting this...I've watched it like 5 times and I still find it funny!

Though I think Enoch will like it more than me...or maybe Jerome.

in between

Taking a short break from the interminable amount of work piled before me...I've clocked a healthy 30 hours of studying in the past 4 days, and I feel my body literally breaking down. Ah, the joys of studying. I never thought I'd say this, but you guys, enjoy the relative zho-bohness of NS while you still have it!

Just listening to the 2005 AEWF recordings, and I know its weird, but I can still remember my part. I guess prolonged periods of studying makes me sentimental and all...sigh.

Its funny though...whenever I listen to QingJiang, I always zip the recording forward so it hits the middle bit, and we skip the beginning. Wish I could do that in real life.

And people who leave their handphones on in Concerts should be shot.

poem

The great Dr Starling, in his Law of the Heart

Said the output was greater if, right at the start,

The cardiac fibres were stretched a bit more,

So their force of contraction would be more than before.

Thus the larger the volume in diastole

The greater the output was likely to be.

If the right heart keeps pumping more blood than the left,

The lung circuit's congested; the systemic bereft.

Since no one is healthy with pulmo-congestion,

The Law of Doc Starling's a splendid suggestion.

The balance of outputs is made automatic

And blood-volume partition becomes steady-static.

When Guardsmen stand still and blood pools in their feet

Frank-Starling mechanics no longer seem neat.

The shift in blood volume impairs C-V-P,

Which shortens the fibres in diastole.

Contractions grow weaker and stroke volume drops,

Depresseing blood pressure; so down the Guard flops.

But when the heart reaches a much larger size,

This leads to heart failure, and often demise.

The relevant law is not Starling's, alas,

But the classical law of Lecompte de Laplace.

Your patient is dying in decompensation,

So reduce his blood volume or call his relation.

-Professor Alan Burton (1972)

quick post

Hi guys! Quick post in the middle of the day, no pictures and such.

I'm just taking a little break from my studies, firstly because I've gone for 6 hours without stopping (which I am inordinately proud of), and secondly because my neighbours, having argued for an hour, are now spending another hour in a marathon of....well, you know. Whatever it is, its too noisy for me to concentrate.

So I hear the A level results were favourable! Congratulations to all! Welcome to life. Sigh.

So in an effort to complete my round of vices this week (having already gone for total inebriation, and on another occasion complete immersion into video-game addiction), I went for a poker game last night. Of course, I kinda just dealt...I'm still very much against gambling and all. But the game itself is fascinating in terms of the range of strategy and many possible permutations and such.

Just another bizarre observation before I sign off: Yesterday, a bunch of us found a dead squirrel outside our Halls of Residence. The poor thing had been obviously bitten by a fox, and was missing both its forelegs. Highly upsetting. Then it struck us: we were more upset by the sight of a dead squirrel than the plethora of dead humans we see weekly in the dissection room.

What have we become?