The Most Exciting Thing to Happen to me Today...

Is that, between 11am and 1pm, I will have a cutlery tray delivered. Hooray! This might seem like a small thing to most but the fact that I have been living with my cutlery in a pile in a drawer with all sorts of things rubbing on to my knives and forks really makes me sad. So Asda are sending me one with my groceries. Brilliant.

I said I would write a [longer] post about my Wednesday night 'revising Philosophy' with Jon and Freddie from the flat downstairs, and Lizzie who is also on our module. It involved us opening our books and wailing about how we may fail the exam but can possibly blag it, and then we had to supervise Jonathan, who had been free-pouring a cheap version of Jagermeister into a mug and saying it was okay because he 'is a barman'. So we didn't really get any revision done at all, but it was a bloody good night. We talked about all manner of things, most of which were extremely rude and horrendous but hilarious. Something we discussed which is clean enough to mention is the issue of kisses on the end of texts. I personally am not bothered about signing my texts with them, I rarely send them to anyone (I didn't even send them to the boyfriend I was with for 18 months), but Jon was pretty certain that if you don't send kisses then you secretly don't like the person. He shouted at me "YOU NEVER SEND ME KISSES, YOU MUST HATE ME", but was happy with Lizzie who sends him two per text. I later found out that Freddie, who was rather quiet during this conversation, is strongly against kisses. I am glad I have a comrade in this matter. It is always awkward though if someone starts sending multiple xxx's and I'm still just blank. People will have to get used to it.

Lizzie left just after midnight because she had lectures early in the morning, but Jon and Freddie and I proceeded to 'revise'. It in fact didn't last long after she left, as Jon, all colour drained from his face, stumbled to his room, bouncing off the corridor walls as he went, and locked us out. After lots of crashing and banging, including what sounded like Jon using his bin as a shoe, we heard that sound that every student fears: retching. Oh it was wonderful. Freddie and I were just listening outside the door giggling uncontrollably. Suddenly we heard the shower start running. That is never a good sign. We all (all being the rest of flat 20) suspected that there was a lot of vomiting going on in there. About five minutes later we heard a bang and a crash which was definitely Jon falling out of his bathroom. I think I almost died laughing. Which is mean, because of course he was very poorly. Not long after this, it all went silent, and we assumed he had passed out. It was our cue to come away from the door and let Jon sleep. This is the text I received from him the next morning after I asked if he was still alive:

"Alive enough, so much pain. Had to clean my bathroom floor this morning which was roadkill and I will never eat pasta again. I have a large number of bruises and seem to have showered fully clothed last night. I can't remember anything[...] but have heard I was a worry so I apologise for being a state xx" 

Note the kisses.

All in all, I think it was a very productive evening. If not for revising, for bonding at least. We all found out a lot about each other. Perhaps things we would have rather liked to have kept quiet, but I guess that doesn't matter now. Freddie and I stayed up for a while longer, eating chocolate fingers and finishing our drinks, before I stumbled up the stairs back to my own flat.

I wreaked havoc.

Unfortunately for Alex, he was still awake. I burst into the kitchen and saw that someone had used my kitchen hand towel to get something tomato-y out of the microwave. In my drunken stupor I found the nearest piece of paper and pen and wrote a sign to the culprit:

I'm not sure how clear this will be but basically the message reads "SERIOSLY? MY TEA TOWEL? Emily. Goodbye Bitches". Dear oh lord. I can't believe I spelt 'seriously' wrong. How embarrassing. I found out yesterday that it was Nathan who had used my tea towel to remove his pizza from the oven. Thanks for that pal.

Alex looked after me until I fell asleep; he made a very wise decision to do this as I almost fell out of bed four times.

I started this post at 10:50am. It is now 11:40am. I really think I should get on with some work.

In the Library with Alex.

This is a quick note to say that last night was a complete and utter disgrace but one of the best nights in I have had in a while. Philosophy revision + alcohol = carnage. Deliciously brilliant.

More on this tomorrow, once I have made some sort of adequate plan for both of my Literature essays and have actually done some Philosophy revision (sober).

A Description of an English Tutor, by An Obsessive Pupil.

I have given up on reading The Old Curiosity Shop before my seminar at 9am tomorrow. I am going to skip to the last few chapters and read them, just so I know exactly how the ending goes. Then I will come back to it when I begin to write this bitch of an essay:

"'One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing' (Oscar Wilde). Do writers expect particular responses to their texts on the part of their readers? How are these historically shaped?"

I shall let you know how I get on with that.

Today was a shambles. Alex woke me up with a cup of tea at 8:30am, which is probably the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me, but after breakfast we watched the Big Bang Theory and ended up falling asleep again until 11:30am. Well, I was asleep until then. Alex continued to sleep, IN MY BED, until gone 1pm. By this time I had finished Waiting for the Barbarians, thought about the themes and such like, written a good few paragraphs about J.M. Coetzee himself and written a response to the text. Still he was asleep. In the end I had to get in the shower and hope he wouldn't wake up just as I was gingerly opening my door to throw my pyjamas out of the bathroom (Some of you may wonder why I can't leave my pyjamas in the bathroom whilst I shower. The answer is this: the whole of my bathroom is my shower. Everything on the bathroom floor will get wet.). By the time I was done he finally woke up and left me to get changed. I was very glad of this.

My seminar today on Waiting for the Barbarians was possibly the best class I've had with my wonderful tutor this semester. I say 'wonderful' not in a creepy way. Oh who am I kidding, it is in a slightly creepy way. Basically, my tutor is THE EPITOME of an English university tutor. He wears cord trousers with braces with a dark shirt and, recently, a bow tie. He combines this look with a tweed blazer, an old brown leather satchel (which I really want to steal) and he has a POCKET WATCH. A pocket watch. My pal from the flat downstairs is also in this seminar group with me, and we regularly coo over him on the way to the class (This pal of mine is male, I might add, and is in a long-term heterosexual relationship. This just emphasises quite how astonishing this man is.). Honestly I could talk about him all day, he's just so lovely. I will be quite sad to not be taught by him next semester, as not only does he look the part, he really knows what he is talking about. His class is the one I get the most out of, and we only see him for an hour each week.

Anyway, enough of my fangirl ramblings about teachers. That is another reason why today has been a shambles; all I've done all day is talk nonsense to my flatmates about completely and utterly irrelevant things, when I could have been finishing off the Dickens. I tried to get it done in the library but just got distracted by all of the people who also appeared to be distracted, so I gave up and decided I would be more productive at home. Oh how I was wrong. Flat 21 has just been wittering on to each other for the past four to five hours.

And it is really important that I go to bed early tonight.

No more missing 9am seminars.

Goodbye.

(N.B. Even though the title suggests I am infatuated with my tutor, I am not. I am just obsessed with how he can fit the picture of an English tutor so well. Please do not tell on me to UEA.)

I am Going to Cry at the end of The Old Curiosity Shop.

My day started really badly. Which was good because it meant it could only get better. I woke up at 8am and put alarm on snooze. At least that's what I thought I did. In fact, I pressed 'Dismiss'. Stupid BlackBerry. Who was the clever one who thought to put that button above the snooze? So in the end I woke up at 11:40am when I heard Gail (our cleaner, lovely lady) plugging the hoover in. I shot out of bed and into the shower, but I still wasn't quite quick enough as she wanted to come in and clean my bathroom when I was getting dressed. Slightly embarrassing.

I was very nearly late for my 1:10pm lecture, but I got there with two minutes to spare. I really should have made more of an effort to finish The Old Curiosity Shop as I have now found out the ending and am very sad about it. I won't reveal it on here but I will definitely cry. If I cried at Great Expectations I'm definitely going to cry about poor old Nell.

After the lecture I spent the next three hours in the library. I read about 14 pages of Dickens and about 50-odd pages of Waiting for the Barbarians, which I have a seminar on tomorrow. I am almost there. I should finish that in time. So The Old Curiosity Shop is the priority tonight. (After this blog post...)

I came home and used up the last of a pasta sauce I had left over, and had to shove ketchup, tomato paste and pesto in it to pad it out. Oh student dinners. Pretty much the whole flat was laughing at me as it was a pathetic amount of sauce, and due to the tomato being mixed with a disproportionate amount of pesto it turned a not-so-appetising pink-orange-brown colour. But actually it tasted really good.

This is another really boring blog post. I will think of something interesting to write about soon.

A very old friend of mine, who I miss dearly, has been getting the full info of my Saturday. All I did was send him a kiss over Facebook and he says "DON'T SEDUCE ME YOU SIREN". Now I had forgotten what sirens are, much to my pal's dismay, and he questioned my intelligence. Not happy. But anyway he went on to explain what they are, and now I fully remember learning about them whilst reading Oedipus Rex or something similar. For those of you who also do not know what a siren is, apparently I am one of these wonderful things:

I use this picture especially as I think it is reminiscent of my Emo days. I quite liked the fact that I was being referred to as a mythical creature, even though I protested a little. However, it was ruined it when old friend goes on to say:

"Well you don't sing to sailors

nor are you part fish."

Disappointing.

Spent the last hour over at Flat 22 gossiping about the weekend. I've just got back from running over there in tearful hysterics over something a guy just said to me. But that is not important.

I really really must get on with my reading.

I'm sure I've ended a post with that before.

An Update on Emily's To-Do List.

1. Read journal article for Philosophy workshop - Today 2pm
2. Read 56 pages of The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
3. Read 19 pages of Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
4. Do at least one hour of Philosophy revision - For test Fri 14th Dec
5. Begin Reading Texts essay - Thurs 13th Dec
6. Find someone who has notes for the seminars I have missed this week

I am feeling very grumpy and there are still 3 things to do on my list. Number 6 is not happening today. But numbers 2 and 5 must. Oh dear.

My poor old flat mates have been subject to my mood since I came in at 6pm. I feel for them. Perhaps I should apologise for being blunt with them when they were trying to get me to come out tonight. They don't mean any harm, do they?

NEVER

Give up on something you think you couldn't live without. Work on it before it's too late.

xxx

HELLO MUM!

It has come to my attention that my blog has 'gone viral' (it really hasn't, I don't think 128 hits in a day counts) enough that my mother is now reading it. So hello Mum, I'll try to keep it clean.

I had a 9am seminar that I was really looking forward to today. I missed it. I woke up at 9:07am, despite having alarms going off from 7am. Ack. I am very annoyed.

The reason for my oversleeping is because I never did get all of my reading of The Old Curiosity Shop done yesterday. So rather than reading 112 pages today (because that is clearly unobtainable), I thought I'd stay up to read it. After being visited by some very lovely people from the flat downstairs I started my reading at about midnight. I thought it would be quicker to follow along using an audiobook from Librivox but I'm not sure whether it may have actually slowed the pace down. Anyway, so I followed on from chapter 47 to chapter 52 until 3am. I decided I was hungry, so I made an amazing cheese toastie and snacked on some chicken (Why?). I was delaying my bedtime until 4am, because I had read somewhere that your body is suited to four-hour cycles, so I didn't want to sleep for five hours then find it impossible to get up at 8am. It turns out that my body is better suited to five-hour cycles, seeing as I did not stir until 9am. Gah. I really am annoyed. Descartes is actually very interesting you know, and that's what we were discussing in today's seminar. Eash.

I have so much work to do today. I must get on.

Emily's To-Do List:

1. Read journal article for Philosophy workshop - Today 2pm
2. Read 56 pages of The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
3. Read 19 pages of Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee
4. Do at least one hour of Philosophy revision - For test Fri 14th Dec
5. Begin Reading Texts essay - Thurs 13th Dec
6. Find someone who has notes for the seminars I have missed this week 

It doesn't really look all that bad when it's written down does it? I'll let you know how I get on with completing my tasks. No more 4am bedtimes.

(By the way, really do check out Librivox - all of the recordings are done by volunteers, in handy little chapter sections, for your downloading pleasure. Really a good idea for Literature students or anyone who fancies a bedtime story.)

Procrastination, the Labour Party, and Thanksgiving.

It is SO difficult to keep focused in my 'study bedroom'. Pfft. Not a very fitting name if you ask me. I keep getting distracted by the tempting sparkly tube skirts that are currently on special offer on the New Look website. They come in all different colours, and, seeing as my Sixth Form have just awarded me with £50 for good grades, it is awfully tempting to just go on a spending spree.

I have 56 pages of The Old Curiosity Shop to read today. It's not that I don't want to read it, I love Dickens, he's probably my favourite author, but his sentences are SO LONG. Honestly, if he wrote a novel like a normal writer, not describing every single move the characters make, his 736-page novel would be about 300 pages long. Agh. I shouldn't complain, he really is wonderful, isn't he?

Anyway, whilst I'm not doing that, I may as well speak of the last couple of days. On Tuesday afternoon I went to see David Miliband speak, and oh my gosh he is so inspirational. He has such an air about him, such a way with words and with people; he really should have been elected the leader of the Labour Party. Of course I did vote for him, but stupidly I put my second choice vote to his brother, so I contributed to poor old David's defeat. It's such a shame, the party would be so different with him leading it. Perhaps we'd have more of a chance at the next election. David already had the public speaking skills and the experience, whereas Ed had to learn. So we're just that little bit more behind than we might like. I digress. There is a picture of the Labour Party Society with Mr. Miliband; of course, yet again, I end up at the back:

Can you spot me? I bet you can't. I'm behind the bald guy who is behind David, to his right slightly. Ahh. My little claim to fame.

That evening, the whole flat (minus Sheila) went to the Silent Disco at the LCR. It was so much fun! I love the atmosphere of silent discos. It's quite odd how it doesn't seem to matter that you're dancing in a silent room with headphones on. I guess it's because you're with a whole load of other drunk people doing the exact same thing. I was, most of the time, on the opposite channel to my flatmates so I was dancing quite differently to the rest of them. A lot of the time they looked at me as if I was mad; I think they assumed I was on the same wavelength (har har). I went off on my own rather a lot, dancing away from them, in my own little world. I've got a lot going through my head at the moment and I was quite happy to just be alone. I walked home on my own, to the dismay of Alex, and was quite content.

Yesterday was uneventful. I missed my 9am two-hour Literature seminar (sorry Rebecca), so didn't have a lecture until 12pm. Then my Asda delivery came early, whilst I was in said lecture, so American Christine and Alex had to get all £130 worth in by themselves (£130 was not just my shopping - it was everyone else's too. Don't panic.)! We then made Thanksgiving dinner, which was somewhat stressful but very yummy. I was determined to finish my two desserts, apple pie and hot cross bun pudding, so I felt rather ill for the remainder of the afternoon. Here are two pictures of me looking rather bloated:

 Ew. That is all that should be said.

Because of this wonderful dinner I managed to do no work all day, and then fell asleep at 8pm until about 8:45 panicking that I would be so behind. Luckily I had some books that had to be returned that day so at about 9:15pm Native Christine and I traipsed off to the library to wake ourselves up and get on with some work. It was all rather fun because Adam Ant was performing at the LCR last night and I could hear it from where I was sitting. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It did, however, take me three hours to read 79 pages; I read 56 pages of The Old Curiosity Shop and 23 pages of Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee. The Coetzee is definitely going to become a favourite of mine; it's been a long time since I've read a book that stirred so many emotions in me. I recommend it to everyone.

In the end, we were in the library until about 1:30am this morning. Such a bad idea, as I didn't get to sleep until gone 3am and I woke up at 11:40. So yet again, hardly any work has taken place during sociable hours. All I've done today is go to Tesco with Alex to buy grapes and cheese, make a chicken mayo sandwich and wash up. Oh and I have read 19 pages of Waiting for the Barbarians.

My right hand is now getting a sore from where I am resting it on the side of my keyboard for too long. I think this a sign that I should stop and actually get on with my work.

Yesterday Was a Very Strange Day.

I feel like yesterday didn't really happen. I was back in Norwich by 11:45am after catching the 10:03am train from Shenfield, and was back at my flat by 12:40pm. I went to my Literature in History lecture (most interesting one I've ever been to) at 1pm and then appeared to do absolutely nothing until 6:30pm when I went to meet OWEN JONES.

I am guessing most people don't know who Owen Jones is; he's a very young looking left-liberal thinker who is definitely beginning to rise to fame. Author of the book 'Chavs', I imagine he will be looked back on in years to come as a very influential political commentator. So anyway, I headed up to campus with fellow Labour Party Society member Dom, and we were talking to Owen until about 9pm. I of course got a cheeky picture:

It's such a shame that it is possibly the worst picture of two people I have ever seen in my entire life. But hey. I met OWEN JONES! :D

And today, I will be meeting DAVID MILIBAND. To be quite honest I am freakishly excited about this. I voted for him as leader (Ed second, big mistake), he is the better looking brother, he is the former Foreign Secretary!! Eeek. Very very eager to meet him.

Now, I really really really, should get on with my reading. 

P.S.

I ate 96 chocolate fingers in 3 days.

Back in Essex!

Well I came home last night to see some of my wonderful girlfriends and to get my prom dress for the Economics Society Winter Ball (no I haven't suddenly switched courses, I'm going as Alex's plus one.). Spent the night round my best friend's house (I've known her for 14 years) and gossiped with my lovely girlies. Of course there were lots of giggles.

I haven't done much today and it's been fabulous. I got in and watched brand new Big Bang Theory, Casualty and Rolf's Animal Clinic. All of my favourite programmes, and on a proper TV! Had an amazing roast dinner (nut roast of course, as we are vegetarians) followed by syrup sponge pudding. I think I'm still full up now, which makes it worse than I then made my mum find some leek and potato soup that she'd made and frozen. It took AGES to defrost but it was so worth it. I didn't realise just how much I was missing my mum's cooking.

I'm going back to good old Norfolk tomorrow and I have mixed feelings about it. I sort of want to stay for longer but then at the same time I'm itching to get back. I have done no reading this weekend at all so am very very behind; I just can't seem to get anything done at home. The telly's always on, or there's always someone to talk to, since I'm one of four siblings. I'll have to stay up as late as possible tonight then read on the train as well. Hopefully I won't get travel sickness (eek).

Tried on my prom dress earlier, and to my dismay I have got ever so slightly fatter since year 11. There's something about wearing a long evening dress though, I felt all princess-y. Come to the conclusion that I will need something to wear over my shoulders as it's probably going to be pretty chilly by the 3rd December. Also I am wearing open-toed sandals; WHYYY?!??!!? 

I really need to get on with reading Dickens, Coetzee and Chaucer. Oh my, it's going to be a long night.

Here's a picture of me looking plump and short in the dress I will be wearing to the Winter Ball.

The Morning After the Night Before.

I have been feeling VERY fragile today.

Alex and I went to the LCR (the UEA club) on our own last night, as everyone else was either poor or elsewhere, so obviously we needed to get very drunk in order for it to be not weird. We succeeded in doing that.

Three quarters of a bottle of wine and five jagerbombs later, I am staggering home clinging on to Alex for dear life and apparently pushing him into the hedge. I also became obsessed with an equally as drunk guy who was plodding home in front of us, shouting at him to be careful. In the end he ran off; he was probably terrified I was some sort of sex pest.

I'm hoping I was quiet when we came in last night but the chances are I wasn't. I could barely see and was having a go at Alex for reasons which should not be published on the internet. When I woke up this morning I honestly thought I was dying; I drifted in and out of sleep from 9am until 2pm, when Alex burst into my room demanding I come to Chapelfield with him to get his iPhone 5. I originally said no as I am approximately 58 pages behind on The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens and I really must catch up, but he twisted my arm with the prospect of free Costa Coffee. AND I got 96 chocolate fingers for £3.99. So excited to eat them.

Now I must get on with my reading.

The Launderette is Fixed!

The drama over the last few days has been that the launderette in the University Village has been completely out of order. It didn't occur to Alex, Native Christine and I that none of the machines were working until we filled up 4 machines to the brim and tried to put our money in. The fact that the floor was flooded didn't seem to cross our minds. This is coming from students who are supposed to have some of the top A Level results in the country. Oh dear.

That was on Sunday, and the launderette has now been fixed, much to most of the students' delights. We just went and did our washing and it was surprisingly empty in there; I had this vision of a queue of hundreds of students in their pyjamas desperately waiting to wash their clothes so they didn't have to go to lectures in their jammies the next day (or, most likely, just not go to their lectures).

It's funny how things like this are such a drama. Even though, and to quote native Christine, "Every day is like a weekend here", such small things which perhaps wouldn't be such a big deal to people in the real world outside of halls of residences really do matter to students. People have literally been growling on Facebook (me included). How will we survive going two weeks without doing any washing? We'd probably be okay to be honest. Nothing a bit of hand washing wouldn't sort out. Yet teenagers find the best way to deal with the situation is to cause a fuss until something is done about it. Such comments as "We should have free washing for the year now after this" is such a ridiculous exaggeration but somehow got so many likes.

40 minutes later...
Just got back from getting my laundry out of the tumble drier! What a lovely feel freshly dried clothes have.

I just realised how tedious this post is going to be to read.

Hi, I Haven't Done This in a While.

Emily Rivers, the girl who was writing that rather esoteric (and not in a good way, at all) blog over two years ago, has come a long way since then. She is now at the University of East Anglia reading English Literature and Philosophy.

I'm not quite sure why I've just been talking about myself in the third person.

So I've been here in Norwich for almost seven weeks now and I'm loving it. I appear to be one of the only students between our two flats (Flat 21, the flat I'm in, and Flat 22 next door) that is not ever-so-slightly homesick. Originally I wasn't really planning on coming to UEA to do Literature AND Philosophy, but those ten marks off an A in Drama and Theatre Studies really screwed me over. But all in all, Philosophy is a really interesting subject and I'm certainly enjoying it. It's all rather hard work though; Aristotle appears to be a confusing man to get your head around. I'm sure it'll all click soon.

I have 5 wonderful flatmates: (Native) Christine, Sheila, Alex, Nathan, and (American) Christine. They're all such great fun and we gelled pretty much instantly. American Christine will be leaving us at the end of the semester and it's going to be such a say day. We are all really not looking forward to it. It's going to be weird for the new flat mate though. I would be really scared coming into a new place where everyone's already had 12 weeks to bond. I guess we will have to be especially nice to him or her.

Anyway, the reason I decided to restart blogging was that in tutorial for Reading Texts (one of the Literature modules I'm enrolled on), we looked at Sylvia Plath's journals and discussed how a reader can read these, when it is reasonable to assume that she may not have written them for an audience. However, due to the nature of Plath, I think she most probably wished that one day someone would want to read her journals - and of course she was right. In that case, did she take a more creative tone to her journals than she would have if they were purely for her eyes only? That we will never know now, but it seems to me that the style in which she wrote them is one she would know would be interesting for an outside to read - therefore making them publishable. This way Plath could enjoy reading back on her writings (or not, as the case may be in her tragic case), and possibly share them with the rest of the world.

I realise I have gone off on a rather wild tangent. Basically, reading Plath's journals gave me the incentive to start blogging again. I am of course writing for an audience, anyone on the WWW, but as I won't advertise this so much as to get a following, it is mainly for my personal pleasure, to look back in years to come at my life during university, and to remember all the stupid things I said as a young impressionable student. Perhaps some people will stumble across my posts one day and take the time to read them. But chances are they won't. There will just be a little piece of my history living on when I'm dead, a small part of myself that I've left behind, and perhaps it'll show something about the way young people were living through the first few decades of the 21st century.

Or perhaps no one will ever find this blog at all.