Wednesday 12 January 2011

First term...

I really am terrible at keeping this thing updated! Here's what has happened since the last update:

Greek
I decided to drop Greek after all - I just didn't understand it well enough to make it worth carrying on - at least not in classes. I think I'm just a slow learner when it comes to languages and the class was going far too fast for me. So I've dropped that class and I'm taking Dark Age & Medieval Europe instead!

Halls
I've applied to stay in halls again next year. I know some Universities only allow first years to stay in halls (or other years under special circumstances) but we've actually been encouraged to apply to stay in halls next year as well. I like the halls - they're occasionally a little noisy, but it's not terrible and it saves a LOT of hassle! I don't have to house-hunt or worry about who I'm living with (of course, there's a possibly that I'll end up being close to unpleasant people, but in halls, you can make a complaint if things get out of hand...) and to be honest, it's just less work. The halls I'm in are catered, so I don't have to worry about food shopping (and budgeting for it) or cooking (or washing up!), they're a nice distance from the main campus, so I can either enjoy the walk or take the (free) bus. If anything breaks in my room, I can get it fixed - it's nice to have that not to worry about so I can just get on with my work!


People
I really like a lot of the people on my course! That was something that I did worry about when I started at Uni - I'm older than them and was worried that either they would avoid me because I was the creepy older person in classes (I'm not the oldest in most of our classes...) or that I wouldn't be able to put up with them being immature. So far, that's not been the case at all. I've got a nice little group of mates!

Exams and Revision
Or "What I Should Be Doing Now"...
I still had to do a Greek exam, despite dropping it. It really didn't go well - I seem to have revised all the wrong things for the exam and can't imagine that I did very well at all - I doubt I passed. So far, that's the only  exam I've had - tomorrow is Classics and Popular Culture (which I enjoyed! So hopefully some good will come of that) and Friday is Greek World - which I was revising for before I came on here... The last exam is a week on Friday - Prehistory. I loved Prehistory as well (it was from the first humans to the first farmers - VERY interesting stuff - more on this in a moment!) but I'm not sure how well I'll do in the exam. I've got another week to revise it, so I'm not too worried - yet!

Other things I've been doing
-I wrote a song! Krankschaft held a competition for people to send in lyrics and they'd make songs out of them... You can hear it at http://krankschaft.soundawesome.com/ or download the full album (and a "making-of" Podcast - very reccomended!) at http://www.doremi.co.uk/krankschaft/songpoems.html . The tune I wrote was mostly inspired by a daydream following an interesting Prehistory lecture - just goes to show some of it must have sunk in!
-Getting overexcited about summer festivals! There doesn't seem to be much going on gig-wise this time of year, but a few festivals have announced their lineups - The Blyth Power Ashes and Sonic Rock Solstice should be excellent again this year!
-Not much else. Seem to have spent the whole Christmas break asleep - oh dear!

Good luck to everyone with exams this and next week!