Yes well I guess that's an understatement. Watched the West Ham vs Preston North End match on TV this afternoon with avid West Ham fan. The temperature on the pitch, was, according to the televised thermometer, 39 degrees C, works out at 100 degrees F. A friend reckons they left it in the sun which is why the figure was so high, I'm not so sure. I'll evaporate if I don't melt first. My home team (who I don't support, not supporting any team in particular) lost 2-1. The West Ham fan is very happy - this also is an understatement.
...when people told me how much fun graduation would be and I'd been getting highly stressed about what to wear, falling off the stage (hopefully not) and the day in general, whereas my mother has been wildly excited for months. Anyway, July 8th was a really really great day, once I'd mastered how to keep all three items of academic attire (gown, hood and mortar board) on at the same time without any of them slipping off and the official photo is even quite good, although as one friend pointed out, I'm grasping the 'scroll' (in reality a plastic tube keeping my hood in a suitably photogenic position) as though I can't quite believe I've got it and am determined not to let it go - either that or as though I'm about to administer a deadly blow with it.
After that, had a really relaxing week in Cumbria, very sunny and idyllic as usual. Then did quite a lot of nothing for another week at home, reading some of the many books on my 'read before I die list' (I've just finished 'Rebecca' - HOW GOOD IS THAT BOOK!?!?!?!?) and then came down to Kent to stay with my boyfriend and go to see Phantom of the Opera - FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL, GREAT, AMAZING, GO SEE IT!!!.
That's pretty much me up to date, oh, and I'm eating a ham and mustard bagel.
Well, I managed, after another night of disturbed sleep and weird dreams about what Taizé would be like if all the monks were evil (something tells me I'm not relaxing enough before I go to sleep) to get up and be on time for Mass. The service, I'm sorry to say, was awful. The congregation seem to be playing the game of 'who can say the responses, Creed and Lord's Prayer the fastest without drawing breath?' and an interesting harmonic was created when one half of the church slipped a couple of bars behind the other during the hymns. Oh dear. On a brighter note, the weather appears to be a smidgen warmer and I began work on either a short story or novel this morning, depending on how far I get with it. Also won a round of 'Worms:2'. Small victories....
I'm feeling the usual sense of at-home mezzo gloom, not sure where it comes from, it has nothing to do with actually being at home, or with my parents, or the cats, that's the good part, it's just.....quiet I guess, and I'm surrounded by all the stuff from university that has to have a place found for it and there's too much stuff for the space. My bedroom distresses me because I never got round to finding a new suite and have been wardrobeless for the last few years and it's all overflowing and I'm really moaning about nothing, guess I'm just tired and the contrast is hitting me. Need sleep and better storage.
The outcome of my university career was that I got a 2:1, which I expected and so I'm very happy, also looking forward to a year doing something different before returning to postgrad study, a good chance to get things in perspective...I hope!!!
Following the end of exams I partied, slept, spent quality time with friends to whom I've become increasingly close over the year and realised that I'm very glad to be moving out of halls of residence for good, albeit missing the bar and grand piano. Another year in a place with so many memories (and so much noise) would have been way too much.
Spent a great week at Taizé at the start of the holidays, it was pretty quiet, only about 500 there at the start and about 950 towards the end of the week, then youth hostelled it back to England with three other friends, taking in Lyon, Annecy, Strasbourg and Lille in just one week, staying in hostels where we could happily have spent more than just 48 hours and others where we spent as little time as possible, sometimes not even wanting to get into bed. At Lille I marched down to reception at half past midnight in my dressing gown, drew myself up to my full 5'4" and presented them with the sheet off my bed, stained and with someone else's hair clearly in evidence, they gave me another one, laundered but still stained, no hair though. Slept almost fully dressed but exposed flesh was bitten by a mosquito during the night, overjoyed to leave the next day, especially as the room wouldn't lock from the inside and the suggestion that something noisy should be placed in front of the door to alert us should someone intrude while we slept was followed up by me - a light sleeper - occupying the bed nearest the door.
Stayed with boyfriend in Kent from Sunday until Thursday and then caught the train home, impulse-buying a copy of Harry Potter 5 from Euston, it helped on the train journey.
Currently facing the prospect of graduation next week and finding somewhere to put all the clutter I want to keep from university and sorting through the rest. Also squaring up for the new job, should be OK, but feels weird at the moment.
It's past midnight and I should be asleep, instead of sitting here with wet hair, scrattling through an article on nineteenth-century hooliganism, trying to cram in One More Fact and knowing that I simply do not have the time to read all the other articles on my shelf before 9 o'clock tomorrow. Sometimes the Homer Simpson adage that 'every time I learn something new, it pushes some of the old stuff out of my head' really does ring true. At this late hour I am suddenly overcome:
a, tomorrow is my last undergraduate exam...ever
b, what if I get a 2:2 after all? should be impossible at this stage but if my dissertation was really crap instead of the rather good piece of work I believed that I handed in???
c, It's then the wide world, or at least, same campus, same university, but....different.
Will not think about these things any more until I have slept, the exam is done and I have my head on my beloved's shoulder.
Shapes in the mist 
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