There are any number of situations that I could apply this to right at the minute.

 

This afternoon I headed into town - appropriately dressed, hair in a bun and one of Rachel's bags on my shoulder - in a bid to find work. Not for now, for the summer... The plan is to temp for the duration of the three months grazing period, earn a bit of money, and get some decent experience onto my CV - but everyone that I've spoken to has said that you need to sign up at Easter to be in with a chance of jobs, so I thought I'd try my luck with the row of employment offices along New St.

 

It didn't go too badly.. sort of. I've got to go through my list of who said what exactly, but most of the places wanted me to come back a couple of weeks before I actually start work. When I politely pointed out that this wasn't really going to be possible - I'd spend my first two or three day's wages alone on train tickets - they generally gave me a phone number or an email address to be going along with. One place did say that they'd call me soon for an interview (a rather upmarket office in the direction of Colmore Row), and Office Angels, the ones who I'd really like to be listed with as Helen says that they've been great at turning out jobs for her, said that I should register and interview with their Newcastle branch (then they'd transfer my details to the Birmingham office, saving time at the start of the summer). A couple of companies weren't the sort that take on people in my position - either temp. to perm., or helping people back into employment after gaps out and stuff - but it's always worth asking in case. One company (which shall remain nameless) took my CV, but informed me rather forcefully that I was unlikely to get anything without six months previous office experience. I take their point, but where are you meant to get that first six months' experience from when you're starting out if everywhere demands it? I guess that people go through personal contacts.. parents in big companies or something. Unfortunately, primary schools are not reknown for their employment opportunites during the summer holidays. Ah well.

 

 

I'm about to go and have supper before heading out to the KEFW spring conert. Both Rachel and Peter are performing in it, and, well, it'll be nice to see a few old faces again, if a bit weird! I plan to wear my Durham hoodie, just to clear up any confusion (- the last time I went in, just at the end of last term, I received several enquires about how Cambridge was going. In those situations, you smile brightly, look the enquirer in the eye, and go, "Yeah, about that.. I screwed up the offer.". You then count how long it takes them to stop squirming.)

 

 

Later: It *was* weird. Not so much the not playing/singing - it was the fact that I didn't recognise a good proportion of the ensembles, even though half of them must have been there at the same time that I was, and also the people missing. Joe, Chris, Claire, Seb and people.. and of course Miss.

 

Also, as we were going over, we heard on the radio that Birmingham City Council have refused Tesco the licence to sell alcohol on the Linden Rd. I'm disappointed. Not because I particularly care about the alcohol one way or the other - it's the way in which that campaign was conducted. Because let's face it - it was nothing to do with George Cadbury or Quakerism. It was nothing to do with alcohol itself.. I'd be astounded if any of those campaigners were teetotal themselves. And yes, some people were protesting for the right reasons, that alcohol shouldn't be seen as the only direct route to having a good time, and that there should be better provision for young people in the area.. but for a good proportion, what it boiled down to in the end was pure, unadultered snobbery. And for that reason alone, I think that alcohol should have been sold there, just to make the point.

 

Brett (my college tutor and a PhD mathematician) sent me this in an email. I thought it was rather good!:

 

    Mathematics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a completely unrelated topic, why does everyone seem to be convinced that my real name is Lucinda? Lucinda?!

 

I walked to Northfield today - just to pay a cheque in at the bank, and stuff. Ten days ago, I was singing Elgar in Durham Cathedral under the direction of James Lancelot.

 

The contrast really couldn't be greater.

 

 

(I laughed out loud at this sentence from Wikipedia: "The once famous Grosvenor shopping centre has been renamed the 'Northfield Shopping Centre', but retains its original charm."!)

 

I knew things were up when I started unpacking this morning and I find our TV in a corner of my room. Further investigation downstairs led me to a startling discovery - my parents have bought a flat-screen, rectangular, digital TV, with a scart socket! We can watch DVDs!! Hell must have frozen over..

 

 

In other news, Birmingham has also frozen over, and it's snowing! Well, hailing and blowing and sunning as well, but most definitely snowing! It be pretty :)

 

I'm home :)

 

'Twas a relatively painless journey, as these things go.. I had a bit more to carry than I'd anticipated, but Max helped me onto the train at Durham, and Dad met me at New Street, so it wasn't too much of a problem. I reckon that my pink suitcase contained approximately 3 cubic inches of unfilled space, including in bags and boxes within that! It's a miracle that the zip hasn't busted tbh..!

 

 

I haven't been in Birmingham since January - and while nine? ten? weeks isn't that much in theory, it still feels like a very long time since I've been in my bedroom and kitchen and bathroom and places.. The wood-pigeons were cooing when I got out of the car, having driven from the local station. I've missed that sound, I didn't even realise!

 

What was particularly weird was how I viewed Birmingham, coming back to it. At Christmas I was just relieved to get home after that hard first term - this time, though, I've looked at it slightly more objectively, with the additional perspective of having seen much more of Durham, and heard quite a few different (albeit mostly notional) views of it, particularly in comparison to other people's own homes. For the first time, it really did strike me as a big city - and a big, industrial city at that. Even when we got off the local train, I was aware of the chimneys and stuff at Cadburys and the red-brick terraces - seeing it from a stranger's eyes, if you like, rather than seeing it as my home, though I'm sure that that will slip back into place in a couple of days or so.

 

Still, it's funny how much we apply perspective to things. When I'm in Durham, particularly when I'm about the river, I find myself thinking how much it feels like I'm in the countryside - and then I realise that for people who live in the middle of nowhere at home, it must feel like a really busy city. For some people, having fields and streams about their house is normal, as is having to go everywhere by car. Having a Post Office and a small off-licence nearby is to have a bustling community. Those people don't find Durham small, I guess, and limited, and olde-worlde like I do - and I don't mean those as criticisms of Durham, 'cos I've grown to really like that! It's just different!

 

 

A particular reason for mentioning this now, I guess, is to do with the shock-horror news of the local area. News so shocking, in fact, that they were discussing it on Radio 4 a week ago - a man told me at Quaker Meeting last week before I'd had any direct contact with home. This is news of national importance... *There are plans to open a Tesco Express on the Linden Rd, between Bournville and Cotteridge!!* Actually, that isn't what's been making headlines - it's the fact that the said proposed Tesco Express plans to sell alcohol, and the 'Bournville Mafia', as they're referred to in this household at least, have created a massive fuss about it, staging a rally and trying to get everyone to sign a petition against it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6461937.stm

 

Where do you start?! Clearly the Youth of Today round here are deterred from drinking by the fact that they currently have to walk to Cotteridge or Selly Oak to purchase booze, or - worse - buy it in at the supermarket... Clearly the sale of alcohol on the Linden Road - outside the BVT boundaries, as it happens - represents the Degeneration of Modern Society in its worst form.. Clearly this is not What George Cadbury Would Have Wanted. As Mum points out, the campaigners have properly shot themselves in the foot. What better advertisement could you ask for that alcohol's gonna be sold there? I might even be tempted myself if the plans get the go-ahead.. Vodka-fuelled rampage through the park, anyone?

 

As a linked article to the one above..: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3056286.stm. Rachel and I were in hysterics! Newsletters, Notice Boards, but More Litter... tsk..

 

Yeah, it's funny how other people view your home!

 

Be impressed. You are in the presence (or the cyber-presence anyway) of Trevelyan College's newly elected Purchasing Manager. This basically means that I am in charge of stash [college clothing] for a year, which is quite a cool job to have!

 

And it would have been a bit of a sad state of affairs if I hadn't got it, seeing as I was the only candidate - but I seem to have been turned down for quite a bit of stuff this term, which makes one paranoid, and Helen did say that she was tempted to vote for RON on the basis that he is cuter and fluffier than I! I'll do cute and fluffy if she likes..! Still, no need. I am in :)

 

 

Things are getting a bit silly now, as the end of term approaches. For arts students, this means that hundreds of summative essays that they should have been writing all term now have to be handed in. For science students, it means that lecturers are scrambling to get through the courses as they are forbidden from teaching new material in the third term - that's for revision, exams, and the crazy, amazing three weeks of partying that we get in June! - oh, and practical scientists have lab reports. I have a bit of backlog of work to be handed in - homeworks that I didn't do while rehearsing, cathedral-ing or just procrastinating in general, something which I do enormously well - but to be honest, I don't really care and neither do my tutors. They're not summative or anything, and I just want to spend time enjoying myself!

 

A group of four of us applied for Handover Formal this Thursday - we may or not go, 'cos we were the last four to get drawn out of the ballot and atm it's looking like we won't be able to get four seats together, in which case we won't bother, but if we don't we'll join the landing meal out somewhere, which'll be just as good. And actually I'm eating out tomorrow as well.. it's my college tutor's 25th birthday in the holidays, so he's combining the celebration for that with 'Tutor-on-Tour'.

 

 

I think the last week of late bedtimes (including three 2ams) is catching up with me. I'm gonna be screwed when I go home. Everyone will go to bed at 10pm as normal and I will be left awake and wondering what to do with myself!

 

 

Where to begin?

 

I haven’t been blogging recently because for one thing, I haven’t had much time and everything is crazy, and for another, the configuration of my space seems to be messed up and won’t let me publish anything (not any more!) – I’ve tried IE and Mozilla, my laptop and the college computers.. subtly different problems on each, but as I result I have given up to avoid extreme frustration.

 

 

Tomorrow (this) evening is the Elgar concert in the cathedral. We had a three-hour rehearsal this evening with the orchestra for the first time, and have another tomorrow afternoon. It’s fantastic! It’s just fantastic! Dad’s coming up to listen :) (though this does mean that anything I have for the next week has to be got home under my own steam..). And of course, the cathedral is such a wonderful place to sing in – I was in the Trevs’ choir service on Wednesday, as well, and the acoustic is really magical.

 

And it’s just.. I’m not Christian, but it still feels special, a holy place. Something about the stone, the history that it exudes, the calmness and the dignity. Stone that’s been there for the best part of a millennium, and will probably be there for the best part of the next. I tried taking some pictures (of the outside mostly, obviously), but you can’t convey a building like that in pixels. You need to be there. Next year, when we’re in the house and having people to stay is easier.. next year, people will have to come up and see it for themselves.

 

 

What else has been happening.. argh, so much, so much! I won’t type all of it out now. It is best to enjoy things while they happen.

 

 

I now know which room I’m moving to next term.. not entirely happy, but I think it’s the best outcome in the circs. It’s to do with the placing of double rooms in college and stuff, and the proximity of various blocks to the bar, but the gist is that all of my friends are on the two halves of a first-floor landing, and I’m on the second floor of that block with other people that I don’t know. It’s unfortunate, and it’s not how we planned it, but basically I wasn’t prepared to go through a repeat of the first term and the placing of people in the room ballot meant that we weren’t going to get anything better. It could be a lot worse, I guess.

 

 

Ooo, and I got my 50% summative Music essay back, the one I was doing over Christmas? The marks are subject to moderation and blah blah blah, but I got 76%, which is apparently a first! Yay! This also means that I have to get 4% in the next essay (over Easter) to pass the module, which removes some pressure quite nicely!

 

 

 

There were all number of things that I was going to blog about yesterday - Quakerism, ethical issues, Classical Unplugged, the respective merits of living in Birmingham and Durham, train companies, the lunar eclipse and related pranks.. But I ran out of steam, and time, and now can't be bothered. Suffice to say, then, that I am sitting at my college desk, it is gloriously sunny outside, a fresh spring breeze is coming in the window, there are as-yet-unflowered daffodils in every direction that I look outside, and I am content. Truly content! That is all! :)

 

Formal went fine in the end :) I found a dress in a charity shop, and it approximately fitted, and I wore it and all was good. I also bought some slightly-too-short strappy sandals (as in one size too small, on Stephen's persuasion), and spent the evening tottering around, trying not to fall over, much to the amusement of those around me. It was nice, because the only person on our section of the table getting drunk was Henry (on a goodly amount of whisky), and Henry's a pretty considerate drunk as drunks go, so that was all good. Stayed up a bit later than I intended though..

 

 

This afternoon, the second Dynamics lecture was cancelled (- the first one was really interesting, about resonance and stuff). This was because the annual 'Collingwood Lecture' was being held - a public lecture in Applied Maths with a visiting speaker each time - and I think they thought it was too good an opportunity to miss. Certainly a good proportion of the Maths staff was in attendance. I went along out of curiosity - it was on quantum Mechanics, no less - and given that I haven't done any Physics since Dual Award GCSE, I was quite impressed at how much I understood, though a fair amount did go over my head when it got onto the formal notation bit. The guy talked about, among other things, quantum cryptography and Schrödinger's cat.

 

I was really glad that I'd gone, although was quite amused by Annie's reaction when she asked me what I'd been doing this afternoon - "A lecture on quantum Mechanics." *pause* "Oh fuck."

 

 

Sorry this isn't the most eloquently written blog. I've just had a rather large bombshell dropped on me and am trying to digest it. 'Oh fuck' would appear to be quite an appropriate response.