L4D2 came out on Tuesday 17th (on time, on target, no 28-hour delays), which meant a little extra work on Monday to allow for guilt-free zombie shooting with COGS for the better part of my waking hours. It’s much more of a game; much harder, too. Still need to find two more good players so that me and Wild Bill Hovercraft can have a foursome to take on the fiercer difficulties. Not that Normal isn’t occasionally a challenge.

After so much zombie killing I felt sleepy and a bit ill and, upon closing the game, slumped into bed. Then I realised that I had done nothing useful since the end of my seminar at 11, and for once felt bad about it. So I forced myself up, made a cuppa, had a shower, sorted out my diary for the rest of term (only three weeks left! Weird…), noted my essay deadlines (Dec 7, ie beginning of the last week, for both 2000 word history/WOR essays, assessed for Stuart and formative for Rob, start of next term for 3000 word Analysing Everyday Texts essay.)

Then realised I actually did feel really ill and utterly terrible and sent a worried and apologetic email to Suganthi saying I might not make her lecture tomorrow on account of going down with the Green Flu.

No worries.

Total number of books on my Somme Focused Study reading list: 23. Total number of these books actually present in the library: 0. So I reserved a few, and at Stuart’s advice booked the Styles Room (war studies sanctuary room and mini-library in the Arts block) for Friday. One of my reserved books came through on Thursday, and after a joyful and uplifting lecture about the siege of Breisach (starving soldiers murdering children for the pot, exhuming and eating rotten corpses, all delightful stuff) I picked it up.

Heading out from the library I noticed a large orange sign on the side of the perennial marquee in Centre Court saying “FREE FOOD” in big black letters. Sikh-Soc were running an awareness-raising, malnutrition-reducing langar, so: loads of handouts and posters and interesting things about Sikhism, along with all-you-can-eat Apani Dhani-esque veggie noms: delicious dal, potato curry, rice, chapati and samosa, with… orange squash. Giving out free food is probably the best way of securing the attention and goodwill of students there is; for Thursday, at least, Sikhism was the best religion in the world.

On Friday, our Somme focused study was somewhat divided: the War Studies folks arguing animatedly among themselves about LMGs and trench mortars and operations and tanks and the definition of grand strategy, the vanilla History students rather timidly and uncertainly talking about Haig and Rawlinson. One ventured an assessment of Allied reconnaisance which included “satellite photography”, upon which Stuart quite kindly said “I don’t think they had many satellites in 1916”. I went to the Styles Room at noon to use my booking, but (despite advertising the availability of the room in person and on Facebook) nobody else did. Their loss.

Total expenditures: £13.

Returned from Bristol and cousinage, with a gift of sausages from Dad, to find that what I had in the fridge was:
1) cheese
2) butter
3) the cup of sausage grease I’m saving to fry eggy bread in

Bangers and three kinds of fat. Brilliant. Delicious, but not a balanced meal. Which necessitated shopping. And oh did I shop.

Cycled up to Sainsbury’s at Selly Oak with a massive list; got to the counter with two thirds of it realised, summing £18 worth of delicious and nutritious things. This was my conservative (and as it turned out, wrong – insert tacky political commentary here) estimate of what I could carry. When at the till I finished paying and realised I still had some space left in my bag, I went back with my trolley bought some squash, biscuits, olives, choc ices, fish fingers and suchlike less-necessary-but-exceptionally-delicious noms to accompany the more prosaic. I was heavily laden, but overjoyed that I’d only need to make one trip up to Selly Oak in the miserable weather.

Unfortunately, the broken piece of crap pannier that’s still fifty per cent of my carry capacity fell off my bike on the downhill just short of the Selly Oak bridge, which embarrassed me and destroyed my eggs. I’m not so bothered about its now ingrown egginess, because I’m definitely going to buy new panniers before I next have to go shopping. But… when I buy new panniers, I will technically be shopping, and thus shopping without new panniers. This is meta.

On the way back across the little cross-stream footbridge that leads to the Bristol Road, I noticed that someone had stuck up signs saying “Cyclist’s [sic] please dismount and cross on foot.” I did, though it rankled taking orders from someone who is manifestly less intelligent than me.

Reading week is… readingy. As well as devouring many books and bacon, choc ices etc I am writing occasionally and having nice long lie ins, which I will of course miss once I get back to my cut-and-thrust nose-to-the-grindstone NINE-TO-FIVE-OR-DIE course. Ripped a video of Alex bungee jumping from a DVD for him, which was a learning experience. I am now working on making TF2 videos. Also, we need to bring Charlemagne to Youtube in force.

November 5, Remember Remember the Day of the Failed Demoman, and I joined a group of Block 12ers going down to the Vale fireworks display. which was deeply impressive despite the being timed to go off with the sky falling on our heads. I lost my party quickly, but found a tree. This did not keep me dry, or help me find them, but did give me a better view of the reflections on the lake. With rain-sodden glasses, mass fireworks accompanied by various movie soundtracks became exceptionally trippy, a blurred kaleidoscope of burning, coloured lights. And twenty-four hours later my clothes are almost dry, too!

Expenditures thus far: £22 shopping.

Had my Educational Psychologist’s Report on Thursday. Word puzzles, mind games, all quite fun and interesting if at times mildly frustrating (that was of course the point) with a lovely psychologist man named Tim. The upshot: (summary, image link) – tl;dr I R GENIUS, just fucked in terms of brain-hand coordination, and have a legitimate claim to extra time and a word processor in exams.

That went as well as could be expected, I reckon.

However, this report lasted somewhat longer than I was expecting, and when it finished I found I was going to be at least half an hour late to Stuart’s seminar. Debated with myself whether to go for the second half (unprepared, without laptop or folder, and also HALF AN HOUR LATE, resulting in mockery) or whether to just go home (so he would think I had bunked off, possibly to go and see the CIA man talking about the ethics of robotic warfare, resulting in being treated as a feckless delinquent.) After considerable thought the latter eventually made itself seem less attractive, so I walked over to Strathcona for the last twenty minutes of the seminar, joined Team Science and read a paragraph about Copernicus out in a loud, arch voice, and Learned. Then at the end I told Stuart I was agonising like nothing else about this essay and oh god it’s going to be awful. He said academic things which basically added up to “no stress; go easy, bro”. I like Stuart.

Despite this, I found myself working into the small hours of Thursday night on it. But that was okay, because it meant when Enzo (Rose’s apparent suitor [eta: no more, I am informed; no comment], a most dashing gentleman of Italian extraction.) arrived falling-down drunk at half past three in the morning outside my window with a guitar and tricorn hat and attempted to play Rose songs, instead of finding me sleepily furious he found me deeply amused and glad of the distraction. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), despite assaulting her room from both sides she wouldn’t wake up. Fortunately (definitely), I don’t think we interrupted anyone else’s slumber.

Submitted the essay, which I have to do both digitally ahead of time through their anti-plagiarism software and in dead tree format on the day itself. History office opened at ten; coach left at eleven. Hurr. At least the trains were running today. I locked up my bike at University Centre, grabbed some apples from the greengrocer to nom on the journey and slept most of the way to Bristol. Had lunch at Yoyo, which was pleasantly nostalgic and also unbelievably delicious and filling. They need to turn into a vast evil multinational quickly so I can have one here.

COUSINWEDDING. Owen and Joey chose to get married on Halloween, which sounded somewhat questionable until I heard that it was when they met, which made it Cool. It was at a hired hall at the Paintworks, an ex-paint-factory-turned-modern-artist/architect’s-private-zone-of-pretentiousness, with scores of jack-o-lantern decorations carved by Freddy and Owen. People variously came in costume or not; since I still haven’t sorted out a way to retrieve Blastwave from Tom, I just came in a black shirt and hid in the curtains a lot. Mike had skull makeup, a top hat and a skull on the end of a stick which tiny Hal played with happily, Joey’s awesome friend Paz and her moustachioed Man as one set of Ghostbusters and some people I didn’t know as another, Steph as Minnie Mouse, aunts in various degrees of witchiness, John as a gangster in an extremely slick hat and… many others, whose details escape me and would take forever.

There was a hog roast, which was delicious and had strips of crackling as long as my arm. There were many many cousins and cousin-spouses and toddling cousin-children and cousin-friends. I love my extended family. Really. They’re great people. Mike gave a rather wonderful best man speech; Owen tore up several times during his groom speech, to general dawwing and approval, and then Paz gave us a very American, very nice account of growing up with Joey, which included towards the end:

“…and Owen, if you let her down I will maim you and leave you naked in a field of zombies.”
Beat.
“The fast kind, not the slow kind.”

This made her instantly and irrevocably the coolest person in the room. And this was before she told me her brother (so… cousin’s wife’s best friend’s brother, this is a rather tenuous link) worked for Valve and I gave her my Steam name and got gifted those parts of the Valve Complete Pack that I did not already have this morning. Which wasn’t much but made me amazingly gleeful and happy.

Ros told me wonderful and heartening things about life. Freddie was envious of university fun times. I had through the night been envious of John’s hat. He gave it to me. It’s magnificent.

Make that: I really, really love my extended family.

On the Sunday and I walked in the woods with Mum and learned about history and life, and got haddock and chips from Luke at the fish bar and exchanged nods and good wishes. Now, of course, it is Reading Week brumside and I shall enjoy the break from the (terrible, ghastly, strenuous, agonising) lectures and sing and dance and eat and perhaps actually read some things, who knows.

Total expenditures for last week: £15.88 (!)