"Hey, are you a Fresher?" "No, I'm a fifth year student. Go away."

In fairness, I really shouldn't be so rude to them. In fact, I really shouldn't be rude to anyone. It's not their fault that I'm back in Swansea doing my undergraduate degree. Again. It's mine. All mine.

No, wait. That's unfair to me. Slightly.

It's been a tough few years, and I honestly didn't realise just how much everything was still niggling at the back of my mind and affecting everything I did. It's not like there's any time to actually breathe at university. There's no comforting routine to engulf yourself in and use as a guide to happily plod along as you deal with all the stuff that life throws at you. Every now and then you get an essay, or assignment, or social, or something that just ruins your timetable.

So. Here we are again, Year 3.2. My dissertation topic is the same, and on the plus side I actually know what I'm doing and where I'm going with it this year (minus the inevitable tweaks that'll happen along the way, of course). My first semester timetable is identical, right down to the times, lecturers, and in two cases, the rooms.

That's one of the things that's not actually helping. I walked into one room this morning with a sense of deja vu, and the firm feeling that two of my friends would be there. But of course, they're not. They graduated. One of them's job hunting whilst the other is getting ready to go abroad and start her Masters.

Instead there was a crowded room, full of faces I didn't recognise, who have no idea who I am or why I'm there.

Additionally, one of my house-mates (oh, yeah, I'm in a house now. No more living on campus for me!) is someone who I started uni with, who graduated whilst I was repeating my second year, who took a year away from uni to get a job and earn some money, and who is now back doing her Masters.

I don't envy her. I don't want her to do badly. I like her, and I enjoy living with her. But I can't help but be reminded that I shouldn't still be doing my undergraduate degree when she's here as a post-graduate. It's just strange.

The house, which I realise I haven't mentioned is sort-of wonderful-ish.

We have a fairly severe damp problem due to next door having as massive as-yet-unseen-to water leak, which has resulted in builders coming around and hacking the hallway walls right outside my room back to the bare brickwork (walking over rubble this afternoon was great).

Other than that, and the fact that we're refusing to put the heating on so it's a bit cold in this house, I actually adore living here.

I have a light in the centre of my ceiling, not one on the wall right next to the book shelves, which meant that half my desk was always in darkness.

I have a bay window.

I have a double bed. Granted I'd have been perfectly happy with a single bed, as that's what I've always had, but still, the change is nice.

I don't have any curtains, I have these pale Roman blind things which seem to be very good at letting light in and heat out.

I find myself missing carpet terribly. Laminate is cold, even through socks and slippers shaped like Eeyore's head.

But I do like having space. Space to move around, space to place things knowing that they very rarely have to move. Space to work without having to move stuff from one place to the other because there just isn't anywhere to keep anything for any period of time.

I like having a sitting room that you can just go to and sit, work, read or cross-stitch when you're fed-up with being cooped up in your room, but don't actually want to go anywhere.

I like having Virgin TV.

I like walking to and from campus, knowing that I have somewhere to escape from campus to, and knowing that I get to walk through two parks (one of them isn't as nice, and is annoyingly unavoidable, but it's a park). They'll be hellish during Hayfever season, I'm sure. Just as they'll be utter hell when the weather realises that it's actually the time of year when things are supposed to be cold and wet. Regardless, I'm enjoying the walking. It's exercise, and exercise is good for you.

I need to get a book shelf, though, and I'm eyeing up moving furniture again (which is bad), but I'm settled, and I'm happy and enjoying university life.

And right now that is such a far cry from last year that I'm really not complaining.

Twilight Saga, comin' at'cha

I loathe Harry Potter.

*pauses for disbelieving gasps of shock, and insults*

I do not adore Twilight.

*refuses to pause for slight confusion*

Have I read Harry Potter? I started, then I put the first book down, and I never picked it up again. Have I seen any of the films? Yes, the first one twice (fell asleep both times) and the third one (bored stiff the entire time. Literally). I will read the books one day, eventually. I may end up becoming a fan, but that's doubtful, seeing as I've lost 4 birthdays (including my 16th) to J.K Bloody Rowling and her bum-chum Mr. Lightening Bolt.

Have I read Twilight? Yes, and I will read the others. But it'll take a while, as I find her writing style slow, laboured, and suffering from a general lack of knowledge as to how people live their lives, along with an unimaginative vocabulary. Also, I strongly advise her to go away and write some Mills & Boon, because, when Edward and Bella are actually in the relationship she spent so long setting up, her writing style becomes energised, and flows. When she goes back to plot, it all falls flat again (I will forever give her credit for seemingly realising this when it came to writing the fight scene at the end of Twilight and therefore having the only witness loosing conciousness and remembering hardly anything about it).

Have I seen the films? Yes, I saw Twilight four times in the cinema (four separate sets of people have attempted to convert me to sparkly vampires, so I felt I owed it to them -that, and I've converted two of them to the Wonderful World of The Late, Great Gene Roddenberry). I've also just come back from seeing New Moon for the second time (I giggled the entire time, save for the occasion where I actually felt sorry for Jacob).

My team is Team Film!Charlie, or, if sticking with the book-verse, Team Hale. Jasper and Alice are wonderful. I like the characters, the actor and actress, and the back story for Alice (from the first book). From what I've heard of the back story for Jasper (I've yet to read Eclipse) I like it. I'm critical of Bella and Edward. Bella needs a bit more personality, to take her out of the 'automaton' category and into the world of humans. Edward needs to take a long hard look at the object of desire and realise that the only thing behind the pretty face is a needy lonely child. I'm trying not to be critical of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, but they're making it So. Damn. Hard not to. Neither seem aware that facial expressions are needed for emotions other than 'sad' and 'shocking despair'. Taylor Lautner has my respect. I actually felt sorry for Jacob at the end of the film, when Bella told him not to make her choose (his face imploded in response to his soul crushing). Also -the abs, the tree climbing, and the really cool CGI he got to work with didn't harm my impression of him in anyway.

(No matter how logical my arguments, how thoughtful my wordings, I will always be a living non-asexual girl).

Will I buy the DVD to this one as well? Yes. When it's very cheap, because I bought the Twilight DVD cheap too, so now I have to have the set.

Also, did I mention the wolf CGI?? The wolf CGI is win.

So long, and thanks for all the essays

That's it. I've just thrown away my university life, all the plans I've ever made for my life, and my decade-long dream of doing something with my life.

But worst of all, I've disappointed Dad.

In reality, I've probably done none of those things.

One late essay will not cause uni to kick me out, especially as I have.... 40 minutes until the deadline. But as I've not read all the sources I've gathered, and am only about 100 words into this 3,000 word essay, I can't see it being handed in on time.

The above fact means that I am still on track to becoming an Egyptologist, and seeing as my dream is to be an Egyptologist, that one seems like it's still all tickety-boo.

As for disappointing Dad, well.... dead men tell no tales, after all, and are fairly useless at sharing opinions. Especially ones that have been gone for over a year. Not that he was ever any good at voicing his thoughts when he was alive, but as they say actions speak louder than words -and it's very difficult to do any actions when you're a pile of ash.

But I KNOW I've disappointed him. I can FEEL it. I've given up. Decided 'to hell with it all' and stopped.

I have disappointed the man who looked at me and could see no wrong. Who was proud that I breathed. Who was proud that I spoke, that I was polite, that I seemingly didn't inherit his dyslexia/inability-to-do-anything-with-words-or-numbers. The man who was proud when I went to school, who told everyone about how smart his daughter was because she was in 6th Form and she was going to university.

His face when school told me to apply to Cambridge. His face when we went for the residential weekend.

I remember that... but I don't remember his reaction when I turned them down, and said I'd rather go to Swansea... I wonder what would've happened had I actually gone to Cambridge...

But there's not point even considering that. The past is the past, and it's shaped who I am.

Goddamnit! I am a fighter. I'm a stubborn little bitch who is so bloody determined to do what she wants that she does. Eventually. I am, after all, not without manners, and I won't just barge my way past people. I'm not some kind of business person, or politician.

But where have I gone? I'm not that person right now.

Right now I couldn't care less about my DEGREE. My degree is my life. It's all I want to do. Well, it's all I wanted to do. Now I don't know. I don't know anything about me any more.

All I seem to want to do right now is sit in my room, or sleep. I don't like silence anymore. I'm constantly listening to music in the background, without taking in any of the sound. I haven't turned my T.V. on in weeks. I'm surrounded by things that I like, that are me; stuffed toys and academic books, scenic picture prints next to Star Trek posters, pens, pencils, pastels and two laptops, and yet I want out. I can't focus. I can't find or see where I fit-in in this place.

I'm feeling claustrophobic.

I went to Philosophy today for the first time in a fortnight (in my defence, the lectures two weeks ago were cancelled, so I only missed one week) and I came the closest I've ever come to a panic attack. A panic attack, in a class about Plato's The Republic -what the hell???

I can't muster up any focus on my work. To make matters worse, I don't care about my work. I was sitting here last night, and I didn't give a damn, knowing full well that I had an essay to hand in. That I have two more after this one. One of which is 5,000 words long.

Today, after Philosophy, I finally felt something. I felt absolute horror at what I was doing, or rather, what I wasn't doing. Suddenly I cared that I had failed to do an essay and hand it in. I keep telling myself I'll work on it tonight and hand it in tomorrow -but will I? I can't say. I don't know. I'm all worked up about it now, but quite literally too emotional to sit down and do any work (I started this post at 2:20pm, it's currently 3:45pm). I can't do it now. I also have a lecture to go to in a bit. Will I make it to that? Yes, because my flatmate is also going, and she'll drag me to it if needs be. Will I listen? Hell no. But that's mostly to do with the subject and the lecturer.

Will I have a quasi-panic attack? Possibly, seeing as this is the module that I haven't done the essay for.

Will I sort this out? Yes. Because I have to. Because I can't live my life like this.

First step: Counsellor's appointment -booked for 11am, next Friday. Just over a week until someone who knows a thing or two can sit me down and go "you need to think about....." or "have you considered that this is a reaction to......". Something and someone to pick me up and plonk me down on the path of life and point me in the right direction.

Introductory Thoughts

Greetings seems to be a good word to begin with. Along with a capital letter.

The Grand Master Plan of this little piece of the World Wide Web is to actually make me do something productive whilst I faff about on the computer.

Additionally, it is to try to correct a flaw in my personality -that I can think of many things, yet I can't imagine them. My old art teacher (a man I will forever be greatly indebted to, and yet never kept in contact with, nor actually said 'good-bye' to) once said that whilst I unmistakeably had talent, I had no imagination. This I've always maintained to be a mis-truth. He wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right, and now I'm attempting to correct it all.

The aim, therefore, is for all of this to inspire me to draw, write, create and theorise again. If I come away with a better understanding of who I am, and where I stand in society in both a moral, political and idealogical sense, BONUS!

Especially as this will help with Plato's Republic to the point I may actually succeed.

Whilst it enables me to make friends, the fact that I have a very... fluid interpretation of what I feel and think about the world around me causes problems when it comes to arguing my corner, and deciding where other people stand. Put simply, I don't have a corner. I don't even have a side.

I'm a spinning top in a polygon.

Whilst other people stick to their sides, corners, and orbit around other like-minded people, I spin around and about, and bounce off other's ideas. I suppose I could really view myself as a Borg drone. I assimilate aspects of the people I come into contact with. I listen to their viewpoints, and their arguments, and when I'm with them and amongst 'that lot' I tend to agree with 'that lot'. Not whole-heartedly, mind -that would be two-faced, and I will forever argue that that is not what I am, damnit. But then, I'll meet up with other people, sometimes people who think the complete opposite, and I'll find myself agreeing with them.

I'm not a character out of Plato. I don't have clear definitions of aspects of the world around me, only to have them shot down by Socrates. I'd have been the person listening, observing and absorbing.

The problem with this in real life is that I talk too much simply to sit on a park bench and watch the world go round.

I also ramble. Lots.

Apologies seems to be a good word to end this post with. That, and a full stop.