Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue9.pdf
Well, this is it, my friends. Mis
amigos. It has been fun, and
laughs, but now we must part, for
the Christmas Vac, and maybe
forever. Who knows. TCS have
betrayed nothing so far about
renewing this space, or even
letting me loose to do other
writing things for them, so
for now this is the last of
these mutterings.
A girl came up to me this
weekend a fter I refereed a
college water polo match
and was getting changed,
and after listening to a bit of
a conversation, said,
‘Oh! You’re Sophie
Clarke, right?
You write the
column? I like
it, it’s funny.’
To be honest, she was probably
just scared, as she’d caught the end
of the match before hers, when I’d
‘accidentally’ mullered Tit Hall’s
captain and shoulder shoved
him underwater. Even if she’d
thought that what I write is,
quote, ‘a pile of steaming
incompetence’ (thanks,
ginger end! You know
who you are!) she was
unlikely to tell me
that as she feared for
her life. Probably.
Considering that I
was also nursing
a large lump
on my jaw
b o n e
from an
elbow to
the face
a er some argy-bargy in the pool,
it’s not an unlikely explanation.
Nevertheless, I was suffused
with joy and happiness – someone
knew who I was simply through
my writing! is was almost as
good as that time when I was
referred to as ‘the infamous
Sophie Clarke’ in the queue for
Life. It made me think, what have
I got from this column nonsense
apart from nine missed deadlines
(sorry Suzanne! You’re the best
editor ever for putting up with
me!) and a few thousand words of
ramblings about my life?
Well…people have liked it. I
think. To my twenty or so readers,
thanks. It’s made me feel like I know
where my place is in Cambridge
again, helped me slightly to work
through the traumas of coming
back to this crazy town. I think my
friends are grateful that, instead of
cornering them with a packet of
Revels and a bottle of wine, I pour
out my problems to a collective
group with more re fined language
and a few more attempts at being
amusing than when I’m simply
rolling around trollied in the bar.
I said in my first column that
my gown had made me cry, when
I bought my BA gown instead of
dusting off my old undergrad one.
I wore the BA gown to formal at
Pembroke the other day, and on
my bike on the way there, a tear
froze to my face then as well. I
couldn’t believe how lucky I was to
be back here and to have had such
an amazing time with all of the new
people in my second Cambridge
life. I hope everyone else has had
good, if not so transitional, terms
too – and feel free to always say
hello. I probably won’t hurt you,
unless we’re in the pool.
Friday 22 November 2013
Friday 15 November 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 8
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue8.pdf
How did we get here? It’s a question asked pertinently at this time in term as we sneak into week seven. Fresher’s week seems so far away. I feel now like I’ve never been away – as if Cambridge has played host to me forever. Yet we’re so close to the end of term, to my return to the north, that it’s di fficult not to start thinking about all the celebrations of Cambridge Christmas, and ignore my first graduate essay which is unfortunately due in the same day as the Selwyn Snowball.
If one more undergraduate tells me that I should be grateful it’s just one essay, I will have to restrain myself from Hulk-smashing them into a table. Sure, I know if you’re an arts student it’s entirely possible that you’re writing over three thousand words a week, and so six thousand words for one little essay seems silly. I’ve been there, done that, and spilled coffee from the allnighters down more t-shirts than I wish to count. It seemed to be at undergraduate I never had enough to say, had never done enough to fill up the word limits, would quote endlessly and ramble incessantly in what appears, reading my essays back, to be an extension of last week’s column.
Yet now, I have too much to say. I barely know where to start. The books I’ve read and notes I’ve made are piled around me as I write this and I just don’t comprehend how I’m going to sort them out. Alright, I know six thousand words isn’t that much. But it’s six thousand words which are worth around 25% of my course. Oh dear. Maybe I’ve got PPA (postgraduate performance anxiety).
This isn’t like a supervision where I could just turn up and explain the slightly dodgier bits of my essay with a dash of charm and appropriate worry and see my supervisor comprehend that I am just a rambling fool rather than a rambling fool who has done no work to back her argument up. I haven’t even located an argument yet for this essay. Or a title, come to think of it. I think it’s lost somewhere around the trip to formal last Thursday with my undergrad posse who returned for one night only. It led to me crouching over an A1 sheet on which is based my essay “plan” frantically trying to cram in di fferent colours of sharpies and quotes from at least seven di fferent authors before running to a supervision and trying not to sweat wine all over her sofa.
Actually, I don’t think I have got PPA. It’s de finitely UD – undergraduate delusion. I just don’t have the appropriately charming smile to get away with that shit any more.
How did we get here? It’s a question asked pertinently at this time in term as we sneak into week seven. Fresher’s week seems so far away. I feel now like I’ve never been away – as if Cambridge has played host to me forever. Yet we’re so close to the end of term, to my return to the north, that it’s di fficult not to start thinking about all the celebrations of Cambridge Christmas, and ignore my first graduate essay which is unfortunately due in the same day as the Selwyn Snowball.
If one more undergraduate tells me that I should be grateful it’s just one essay, I will have to restrain myself from Hulk-smashing them into a table. Sure, I know if you’re an arts student it’s entirely possible that you’re writing over three thousand words a week, and so six thousand words for one little essay seems silly. I’ve been there, done that, and spilled coffee from the allnighters down more t-shirts than I wish to count. It seemed to be at undergraduate I never had enough to say, had never done enough to fill up the word limits, would quote endlessly and ramble incessantly in what appears, reading my essays back, to be an extension of last week’s column.
Yet now, I have too much to say. I barely know where to start. The books I’ve read and notes I’ve made are piled around me as I write this and I just don’t comprehend how I’m going to sort them out. Alright, I know six thousand words isn’t that much. But it’s six thousand words which are worth around 25% of my course. Oh dear. Maybe I’ve got PPA (postgraduate performance anxiety).
This isn’t like a supervision where I could just turn up and explain the slightly dodgier bits of my essay with a dash of charm and appropriate worry and see my supervisor comprehend that I am just a rambling fool rather than a rambling fool who has done no work to back her argument up. I haven’t even located an argument yet for this essay. Or a title, come to think of it. I think it’s lost somewhere around the trip to formal last Thursday with my undergrad posse who returned for one night only. It led to me crouching over an A1 sheet on which is based my essay “plan” frantically trying to cram in di fferent colours of sharpies and quotes from at least seven di fferent authors before running to a supervision and trying not to sweat wine all over her sofa.
Actually, I don’t think I have got PPA. It’s de finitely UD – undergraduate delusion. I just don’t have the appropriately charming smile to get away with that shit any more.
Friday 8 November 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 7
Complete issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue7.pdf
Ah, week five. How good it was to have you here, however brie fly. A friend described you quite philosophically as the ‘ultimate leveller’. ‘How so?’ I queried. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘it just means that everyone is about as cynical as me, for one week only.'
It’s always nice to hear people welcoming a bit of cynicism into their lives. Go on. Live wild. Do it. The Oxford English Dictionary (obviously my first port of call for anything which calls for a de finition) informs me that to be cynical is ‘resembling the Cynic philosophers in contempt of pleasure, churlishness, or disposition to find fault; characteristic of a cynic; surly, currish, misanthropic, captious; disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness; sneering’.
I’m now tempted to trawl Wikipedia and the darker ravages of Google to find out what a Cynic philosopher is, but I’m on a time deadline with this column as I accidentally took a twelve hour disco nap yesterday from five in the afternoon just before circuits until five forty-three this morning when my alarm alerted me to the fact that my presence was required on the Cam, so I’m just going to leave it. You can look it up for yourselves. at’s independent learning right there, folks. That’s what you’re here for.
Anyway, sorry, back to being cynical. I think it’s good for you, injecting some cynicism – mainly because it makes the sunshine of optimism all the sweeter when experienced a fterwards. Human sincerity? Pah. I spit on it. All these blooming, darling Freshers, with their open faces and earnest vows of hard work – now is the winter of our discontent in the a ftermath of week five, now is the time to realise that cynicism will sneer with you at the missed opportunities of the previous weeks, will help you along the way in the next two thirty a.m. heartbreak, will lead you to a place of misanthropy.
Think of it as a chrysalis. You will emerge from cynicism’s cocoon to the bright lights and beautiful world of the almost-end of term, revitalised by those hours spent ignoring others’ happiness and instead mainlining four episodes of ‘Merlin’ on your own in your room and eating your weight in A fter Eights. My tenth week five has been spent much as my all my others – heartbreak, chocolate, running. Alone, and better for it. Don’t in flict yourself on others when like this; it is better for this introspection to be carried out when the cynic in you can yell in full ow, bothering no one else. Ideally at 3am I the morning, fuelled by some wine.
Cry not for me, though, Argentina. I take cynicism with me wherever I am – and even into week 6, following the OED’s last de finition of cynical: ‘With etymological allusion: Relating to a dog; dog-like’. I think my disco nap might have rotted my brain, but I think it’s trying to tell me to take a new brand of enthusiastic cynicism into the coming weeks. It sounds oxymoronic but I think, like Tim Gunn always tells me, that I can make it work.
Ah, week five. How good it was to have you here, however brie fly. A friend described you quite philosophically as the ‘ultimate leveller’. ‘How so?’ I queried. ‘Well,’ she replied, ‘it just means that everyone is about as cynical as me, for one week only.'
It’s always nice to hear people welcoming a bit of cynicism into their lives. Go on. Live wild. Do it. The Oxford English Dictionary (obviously my first port of call for anything which calls for a de finition) informs me that to be cynical is ‘resembling the Cynic philosophers in contempt of pleasure, churlishness, or disposition to find fault; characteristic of a cynic; surly, currish, misanthropic, captious; disposed to disbelieve in human sincerity or goodness; sneering’.
I’m now tempted to trawl Wikipedia and the darker ravages of Google to find out what a Cynic philosopher is, but I’m on a time deadline with this column as I accidentally took a twelve hour disco nap yesterday from five in the afternoon just before circuits until five forty-three this morning when my alarm alerted me to the fact that my presence was required on the Cam, so I’m just going to leave it. You can look it up for yourselves. at’s independent learning right there, folks. That’s what you’re here for.
Anyway, sorry, back to being cynical. I think it’s good for you, injecting some cynicism – mainly because it makes the sunshine of optimism all the sweeter when experienced a fterwards. Human sincerity? Pah. I spit on it. All these blooming, darling Freshers, with their open faces and earnest vows of hard work – now is the winter of our discontent in the a ftermath of week five, now is the time to realise that cynicism will sneer with you at the missed opportunities of the previous weeks, will help you along the way in the next two thirty a.m. heartbreak, will lead you to a place of misanthropy.
Think of it as a chrysalis. You will emerge from cynicism’s cocoon to the bright lights and beautiful world of the almost-end of term, revitalised by those hours spent ignoring others’ happiness and instead mainlining four episodes of ‘Merlin’ on your own in your room and eating your weight in A fter Eights. My tenth week five has been spent much as my all my others – heartbreak, chocolate, running. Alone, and better for it. Don’t in flict yourself on others when like this; it is better for this introspection to be carried out when the cynic in you can yell in full ow, bothering no one else. Ideally at 3am I the morning, fuelled by some wine.
Cry not for me, though, Argentina. I take cynicism with me wherever I am – and even into week 6, following the OED’s last de finition of cynical: ‘With etymological allusion: Relating to a dog; dog-like’. I think my disco nap might have rotted my brain, but I think it’s trying to tell me to take a new brand of enthusiastic cynicism into the coming weeks. It sounds oxymoronic but I think, like Tim Gunn always tells me, that I can make it work.
Friday 1 November 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 6
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue6.pdf
It’s finally happened. I thought it would occur later on in my life – yet no matter. I cannot be distracted from my ray of happiness. I have become an internet meme.
Having uploaded a photo which I found charming for its insouciance, as well as being a perfect example of my hat = slimmer theory (see previous columns) I wandered away from my computer for a few hours to actually do some work, take some notes and think about theorising my autobiography. I returned to find that amusing pictures and phrases had been uploaded by two of my friends, both of them, presumably extremely bored, had memed me. Is that even a verb? ‘Strutting Sophie’, apparently.
Well it made me chuckle. I’m not exactly sure why I feel so chu ffed about this but it’s kept me buoyed up the wholeweekend, past my friend sending inappropriate texts to my Cindies conquest from my phone a fter MCR dinner on Saturday, past seeing said conquest in a boat on Sunday and choking on my water, past my sister going home from her visit here and leaving me richer in cupcakes yet poorer in company.
The simple act of someone attaching some vaguely amusing words to a not-even-particularly-inspiring picture of me has turned everything around! If you have any ideas as to why this permanent mood change has occurred, dear reader, please email them in, or something, to the editor – lord knows I love a good postbag of columnist-hating vitriol mixed with a charming splash of innocent and lovely suggestions.
My sister thinks I’m just agog over someone paying attention to a photo of mine; my best friend put forward via skype that I just enjoy people making fun of my pictures as much as I make fun of them; and my mother googled the word ‘meme’ and threw a fit that my picture on the internet might be ruining all my job chances. As if, as an English graduate sitting a second Master’s degree in Children’s Literature I even have any job chances.
When I try to pinpoint why some words on a picture of me have brightened my life quite so much I am forced to admit that it’s because it makes me feel like I am Down with the Kids. In conjunction with the Taylor Swift song ‘22’, I feel like I am signi ficantly contributing to the idea that 22 is, really, the new 18. In fact, it’s so much better than eighteen. I can handle an internet meme about me without questioning my self-worth, and my long term memory for song lyrics is much improved. Oh yeah, so what if it took the internet to prove that 22 is alright. You just watch. A fter you’ve read this, I bet you want to be 22 with an internet meme as well. Maybe I should put it on my CV.
It’s finally happened. I thought it would occur later on in my life – yet no matter. I cannot be distracted from my ray of happiness. I have become an internet meme.
Having uploaded a photo which I found charming for its insouciance, as well as being a perfect example of my hat = slimmer theory (see previous columns) I wandered away from my computer for a few hours to actually do some work, take some notes and think about theorising my autobiography. I returned to find that amusing pictures and phrases had been uploaded by two of my friends, both of them, presumably extremely bored, had memed me. Is that even a verb? ‘Strutting Sophie’, apparently.
Well it made me chuckle. I’m not exactly sure why I feel so chu ffed about this but it’s kept me buoyed up the wholeweekend, past my friend sending inappropriate texts to my Cindies conquest from my phone a fter MCR dinner on Saturday, past seeing said conquest in a boat on Sunday and choking on my water, past my sister going home from her visit here and leaving me richer in cupcakes yet poorer in company.
The simple act of someone attaching some vaguely amusing words to a not-even-particularly-inspiring picture of me has turned everything around! If you have any ideas as to why this permanent mood change has occurred, dear reader, please email them in, or something, to the editor – lord knows I love a good postbag of columnist-hating vitriol mixed with a charming splash of innocent and lovely suggestions.
My sister thinks I’m just agog over someone paying attention to a photo of mine; my best friend put forward via skype that I just enjoy people making fun of my pictures as much as I make fun of them; and my mother googled the word ‘meme’ and threw a fit that my picture on the internet might be ruining all my job chances. As if, as an English graduate sitting a second Master’s degree in Children’s Literature I even have any job chances.
When I try to pinpoint why some words on a picture of me have brightened my life quite so much I am forced to admit that it’s because it makes me feel like I am Down with the Kids. In conjunction with the Taylor Swift song ‘22’, I feel like I am signi ficantly contributing to the idea that 22 is, really, the new 18. In fact, it’s so much better than eighteen. I can handle an internet meme about me without questioning my self-worth, and my long term memory for song lyrics is much improved. Oh yeah, so what if it took the internet to prove that 22 is alright. You just watch. A fter you’ve read this, I bet you want to be 22 with an internet meme as well. Maybe I should put it on my CV.
Friday 25 October 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 5
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue5.pdf
I’ve broken my graduation present. The kindle I got for my BA graduation in 2011 has died a death; the screen is showing a panoply of lines and blank white space and it won’t turn on. I think I might have sat on it while it was in my rucksack but I’m not sure; all I know is it really messed with my plans to do work while I was away over the weekend.
Luckily I’m a secret Luddite and never travel anywhere without a few printed paper books so I was sorted. Still, I feel like I’ve severed a link to my previous Cambridge life, even if it was a symbol of the highly unsatisfactory end of it. Maybe it’s a sign of my complete assimilation to the grad lifestyle.
I had to undergo a reinitiation into my sports club which was perhaps a sign that I might cling on to some undergraduate tendencies a little bit longer, as I succeeded in completely stacking it on Jesus Green, getting locked in a phone box and waking up the next day to row an outing completely o ff my face. Still, the loss of my graduation gi ft and subsequent phone call to the insurance to get a replacement made me feel unerringly grown-up, as did going to the bank to get my overdra ft extended – time was I would have just lived off rice and peas for two weeks.
I even know people now. I eat dinner in hall with friends. The Grad is back, people. I am back in the college zone. Maybe that makes this column sort of redundant? I don’t think so. My jarring sense of dislocation recurs at the oddest of times - the other day I walked across Clare Bridge and burst into tears just because I was back and so happy and sad to be here.
I played on a sports team with someone born in 1994. 1994! I was beginning my unending run of education in that year! I have rarely felt such an aged twenty-two year old (apart from when I made myself ill by going out five nights in a row last week). There’s nothing to remind you more of how much of a non-fresher you are than when you’re making your kindle read to you as you suffer from Freshers’ flu and are too dizzy to hold it.
Thankfully it turns out my kindle replacement will be posted back to me, solving my problems of illness-weakened reading and book-burdened travel for the foreseeable future. It seems slightly fitting that I should have managed to ruin it and get it replaced even before the halfway mark of this new term. My graduation present has turned into my matriculation update. Got to love the poeticism in that.
I’ve broken my graduation present. The kindle I got for my BA graduation in 2011 has died a death; the screen is showing a panoply of lines and blank white space and it won’t turn on. I think I might have sat on it while it was in my rucksack but I’m not sure; all I know is it really messed with my plans to do work while I was away over the weekend.
Luckily I’m a secret Luddite and never travel anywhere without a few printed paper books so I was sorted. Still, I feel like I’ve severed a link to my previous Cambridge life, even if it was a symbol of the highly unsatisfactory end of it. Maybe it’s a sign of my complete assimilation to the grad lifestyle.
I had to undergo a reinitiation into my sports club which was perhaps a sign that I might cling on to some undergraduate tendencies a little bit longer, as I succeeded in completely stacking it on Jesus Green, getting locked in a phone box and waking up the next day to row an outing completely o ff my face. Still, the loss of my graduation gi ft and subsequent phone call to the insurance to get a replacement made me feel unerringly grown-up, as did going to the bank to get my overdra ft extended – time was I would have just lived off rice and peas for two weeks.
I even know people now. I eat dinner in hall with friends. The Grad is back, people. I am back in the college zone. Maybe that makes this column sort of redundant? I don’t think so. My jarring sense of dislocation recurs at the oddest of times - the other day I walked across Clare Bridge and burst into tears just because I was back and so happy and sad to be here.
I played on a sports team with someone born in 1994. 1994! I was beginning my unending run of education in that year! I have rarely felt such an aged twenty-two year old (apart from when I made myself ill by going out five nights in a row last week). There’s nothing to remind you more of how much of a non-fresher you are than when you’re making your kindle read to you as you suffer from Freshers’ flu and are too dizzy to hold it.
Thankfully it turns out my kindle replacement will be posted back to me, solving my problems of illness-weakened reading and book-burdened travel for the foreseeable future. It seems slightly fitting that I should have managed to ruin it and get it replaced even before the halfway mark of this new term. My graduation present has turned into my matriculation update. Got to love the poeticism in that.
Friday 18 October 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 4
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume4_Michaelmas_Issue4.pdf
As I write this I’m having a panic: I’ve got nothing to wear for Matriculation Dinner. Well, that’s a lie. I do, actually, but the dress I was planning to wear has been discarded as I’ve just realised that it’s the dress I wore to my original Matriculation Dinner four years ago.
I think it says quite a lot about my sense of eternal style (and my eternal state of student poverty) that I have the same dress hanging around in my wardrobe. I recollect as well that I am in largely the same situation as my last Matric Dinner – I’ve got a nasty case of Freshers’ flu hanging around, I’ve been out four nights on the trot, (with the nagging sensation that I embarrassed myself more on the previous Friday night than I’ll ever be able to apologise for) and I’m running late. Again. Oh yeah, being a postgraduate means I’ve got everything sorted and under control.
If you were to look at the intricate timetable I’ve crafted onto some magic whiteboard paper (look it up – it will BLOW your MIND) then this could easily be the impression you come away with. However, I feel ever more like a panicked fresher undergraduate: a large amount of reading, a seemingly endless amount of extra-curricular activities, and always the fear that by electing to stay in and sleep instead of joining in with the latest MCR event, I’ll be left behind by my peers. It’s a bit of a balancing act, fitting back into the college where people sort of know who I am but I’m trying to get to know the new postgrads. They’re all talking about novicing; I’ve somehow got myself signed up to W1. They’re chatting about the newest exciting thing they’ve discovered in town, and I feel a little bit world-weary as I recall the halcyon day long ago when I too found that same statue/space/ view.
Oh, Cambridge. How do you do it? You keep entrancing buckets of new people to fall in love with you. Despite the fact that you’ve replaced the pasty shop with a Jack Wills, for which I lay the blame squarely at the feet of one D. Cameron, somehow the charm of my town (I’ve been here ages – of course it’s my town!) is bringing me together with loads of new fun people who all appear to like the same things I do – revels, of the chocolate AND party kind, champers, and studying what you’re passionate about to a high level.
I’ve found a dress now, in between typing this column, having a bit of a nosy round some Facebook pro files and reading an article about the impact that cultural background has on education. The MCR are meeting up for gin and tonic pre-drinks. I’ve sorted out the embarrassment hangover from Friday night and I feel like I’m ready to face the evening ahead. Unlike the fresher I just heard scurrying past my window, fretting about her almost-overdue essay, I think I’ve got stuff just about sorted.
As I write this I’m having a panic: I’ve got nothing to wear for Matriculation Dinner. Well, that’s a lie. I do, actually, but the dress I was planning to wear has been discarded as I’ve just realised that it’s the dress I wore to my original Matriculation Dinner four years ago.
I think it says quite a lot about my sense of eternal style (and my eternal state of student poverty) that I have the same dress hanging around in my wardrobe. I recollect as well that I am in largely the same situation as my last Matric Dinner – I’ve got a nasty case of Freshers’ flu hanging around, I’ve been out four nights on the trot, (with the nagging sensation that I embarrassed myself more on the previous Friday night than I’ll ever be able to apologise for) and I’m running late. Again. Oh yeah, being a postgraduate means I’ve got everything sorted and under control.
If you were to look at the intricate timetable I’ve crafted onto some magic whiteboard paper (look it up – it will BLOW your MIND) then this could easily be the impression you come away with. However, I feel ever more like a panicked fresher undergraduate: a large amount of reading, a seemingly endless amount of extra-curricular activities, and always the fear that by electing to stay in and sleep instead of joining in with the latest MCR event, I’ll be left behind by my peers. It’s a bit of a balancing act, fitting back into the college where people sort of know who I am but I’m trying to get to know the new postgrads. They’re all talking about novicing; I’ve somehow got myself signed up to W1. They’re chatting about the newest exciting thing they’ve discovered in town, and I feel a little bit world-weary as I recall the halcyon day long ago when I too found that same statue/space/ view.
Oh, Cambridge. How do you do it? You keep entrancing buckets of new people to fall in love with you. Despite the fact that you’ve replaced the pasty shop with a Jack Wills, for which I lay the blame squarely at the feet of one D. Cameron, somehow the charm of my town (I’ve been here ages – of course it’s my town!) is bringing me together with loads of new fun people who all appear to like the same things I do – revels, of the chocolate AND party kind, champers, and studying what you’re passionate about to a high level.
I’ve found a dress now, in between typing this column, having a bit of a nosy round some Facebook pro files and reading an article about the impact that cultural background has on education. The MCR are meeting up for gin and tonic pre-drinks. I’ve sorted out the embarrassment hangover from Friday night and I feel like I’m ready to face the evening ahead. Unlike the fresher I just heard scurrying past my window, fretting about her almost-overdue essay, I think I’ve got stuff just about sorted.
Friday 11 October 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 3
Full issue found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue3.pdf
Everyone – I must call your attention to a terrible injustice. I have been wronged, dear reader, by the abomination of... a picture.
It is not right. Why, one might ask, do I resemble someone with a helmet of hair, much like Donald Trump or Margaret Thatcher? Why is my chin so unreasonably large? Why, I want to know, do I look so much worse in reality than in my hazy view in the mirror of a morning?
Really this is because I usually don’t have my glasses on when I look in the mirror so everything appears as a pleasing blur in which spots are miraculously banished by the simple virtue of being wildly short-sighted. I can’t a fford contact lenses for everyday use. They fall out in the pool at water polo and for some reason the dailies are run like hooch, in a racket at extortionate prices, but without the redemption of a Lawless-esque Tom Hardy figure and his swoonworthy cardigan.
So when my glasses aren’t on I feel like I’m pretty much Miranda Kerr, minus Orlando Bloom and an adorable baby son. Turns out I’m actually not. Turns out that I no longer have the same body I had when I was 18, or even 20. I play much more sport now; I pack muscle on through weights training. I am solid compared to my flighty 18 year old self, and I quite like it because when someone gets tackled by me on the pitch or in the pool, they know about it. Which is good. And cycling out to Homerton for my lectures is no trouble at all.
The side e ffect is that I feel like a massive heifer when I stand next to the current second and third years, who all appear to be made from shapely twiglets, all lithe limbs topped with coi ffured hair. You wouldn’t know it from the picture, in which it appears to have been GLUED TO MY HEAD, but my hair is normally rather large, in the style of Caitlin Moran or Solange Knowles. Usually I wear it even bigger, in the hope that like wearing a rather large hat, what appears between the hair and the floor might look slimmer. This logic is usually infallible and can be the only reason why I look so much . . . larger in my headshot.
I’m even blaming the headshot for my complete lack of success at the Freshers’ swap this past Sunday. Not only did Fresherss eyes glaze over when they realised how old I was, but I spent two hours (TWO HOURS THAT I COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ‘STRICTLY’) flirting with someone only for him to call up the headshot and my column on his phone and then promptly turn around and latch himself to someone else with his mouth, like a leech, or a lamprey eel. So please, Editors. It’s di fficult enough dealing with the competition and the age thing. Just give me a chance to prove that my hair is not actually cast from Plaster of Paris.
Everyone – I must call your attention to a terrible injustice. I have been wronged, dear reader, by the abomination of... a picture.
It is not right. Why, one might ask, do I resemble someone with a helmet of hair, much like Donald Trump or Margaret Thatcher? Why is my chin so unreasonably large? Why, I want to know, do I look so much worse in reality than in my hazy view in the mirror of a morning?
Really this is because I usually don’t have my glasses on when I look in the mirror so everything appears as a pleasing blur in which spots are miraculously banished by the simple virtue of being wildly short-sighted. I can’t a fford contact lenses for everyday use. They fall out in the pool at water polo and for some reason the dailies are run like hooch, in a racket at extortionate prices, but without the redemption of a Lawless-esque Tom Hardy figure and his swoonworthy cardigan.
So when my glasses aren’t on I feel like I’m pretty much Miranda Kerr, minus Orlando Bloom and an adorable baby son. Turns out I’m actually not. Turns out that I no longer have the same body I had when I was 18, or even 20. I play much more sport now; I pack muscle on through weights training. I am solid compared to my flighty 18 year old self, and I quite like it because when someone gets tackled by me on the pitch or in the pool, they know about it. Which is good. And cycling out to Homerton for my lectures is no trouble at all.
The side e ffect is that I feel like a massive heifer when I stand next to the current second and third years, who all appear to be made from shapely twiglets, all lithe limbs topped with coi ffured hair. You wouldn’t know it from the picture, in which it appears to have been GLUED TO MY HEAD, but my hair is normally rather large, in the style of Caitlin Moran or Solange Knowles. Usually I wear it even bigger, in the hope that like wearing a rather large hat, what appears between the hair and the floor might look slimmer. This logic is usually infallible and can be the only reason why I look so much . . . larger in my headshot.
I’m even blaming the headshot for my complete lack of success at the Freshers’ swap this past Sunday. Not only did Fresherss eyes glaze over when they realised how old I was, but I spent two hours (TWO HOURS THAT I COULD HAVE BEEN WATCHING ‘STRICTLY’) flirting with someone only for him to call up the headshot and my column on his phone and then promptly turn around and latch himself to someone else with his mouth, like a leech, or a lamprey eel. So please, Editors. It’s di fficult enough dealing with the competition and the age thing. Just give me a chance to prove that my hair is not actually cast from Plaster of Paris.
Friday 4 October 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 2
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue2.pdf
The problem I have with the people who are here in Cambridge currently is that they’re not my people. I hope you don’t take this in a weird sort of pure race kind of way; all I mean is, where are the people I know, that I eat lunch with in Hall? Where are my library-book-sharing, cup-of-tea-brewing, bar-propping-up mates? Why don’t I know anyone in the smoking area at Life?
Oh, right. They’re actually earning a living wage doing Important Things while some of us scrape by on some funding. Doing some reading. And some writing. Sometimes. It’s hard not to be a little bit estranged and more than a little bit bitter about it all.
I don’t really “get” this whole job thing. It’s like children; just not foreseeable in my near future. In fact, that makes it more like a dog, as children aren’t foreseeable anywhere in my future. Not even with a telescope and a really tall ladder. But jobs are where my people are at. They are working for banks, for the government, for literary agencies and charities and schools. They are training to be lawyers and doctors and accountants.
And me? Well, yesterday I watched 4 episodes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, crying at the end of every single one, then baked a cake and made a head start on some pressing reading for a seminar… which is actually not on for another ten days. I don’t envy my gainfully employed peers the early starts (but hello, I’m a boatie!), the tiredness and the long days (I have worked before, you know, in the vac. I am aware of the tribulations) but I would like some cash and some kind of worldly status, please and thank you, instead of the weary glances you get from people on announcing that you are a sort of perpetual student.
Most of all I would like them all, simultaneously, to sack it in and come back for some sort of last hoorah, really, because I am not the world’s biggest fan of the awkward Hall dance, where I stand at the exit of the servery and fruitlessly survey the tabled landscape for all of the people who used to accompany me there. Except, in the main, I’m quite…well…glad that they’re not present. I made a choice to be here, just like they made a choice to be elsewhere. They’re happy, and I’m happy. They’re back this weekend for the Old Boys celebrations, and yes, we’ll have a great time at dinner on Saturday and at brunch the next morning, but in all actuality when they leave on Sunday I’ll be le ft with the research for a new paper that I’m itching to crack on with, an MCR who are really lovely and fun and a slowly growing amount of current undergraduates I know. These might not be my people just yet, but hopefully I’m one step closer to becoming one of theirs. And if you see me in the smoking area at Life, please say hi.
The problem I have with the people who are here in Cambridge currently is that they’re not my people. I hope you don’t take this in a weird sort of pure race kind of way; all I mean is, where are the people I know, that I eat lunch with in Hall? Where are my library-book-sharing, cup-of-tea-brewing, bar-propping-up mates? Why don’t I know anyone in the smoking area at Life?
Oh, right. They’re actually earning a living wage doing Important Things while some of us scrape by on some funding. Doing some reading. And some writing. Sometimes. It’s hard not to be a little bit estranged and more than a little bit bitter about it all.
I don’t really “get” this whole job thing. It’s like children; just not foreseeable in my near future. In fact, that makes it more like a dog, as children aren’t foreseeable anywhere in my future. Not even with a telescope and a really tall ladder. But jobs are where my people are at. They are working for banks, for the government, for literary agencies and charities and schools. They are training to be lawyers and doctors and accountants.
And me? Well, yesterday I watched 4 episodes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’, crying at the end of every single one, then baked a cake and made a head start on some pressing reading for a seminar… which is actually not on for another ten days. I don’t envy my gainfully employed peers the early starts (but hello, I’m a boatie!), the tiredness and the long days (I have worked before, you know, in the vac. I am aware of the tribulations) but I would like some cash and some kind of worldly status, please and thank you, instead of the weary glances you get from people on announcing that you are a sort of perpetual student.
Most of all I would like them all, simultaneously, to sack it in and come back for some sort of last hoorah, really, because I am not the world’s biggest fan of the awkward Hall dance, where I stand at the exit of the servery and fruitlessly survey the tabled landscape for all of the people who used to accompany me there. Except, in the main, I’m quite…well…glad that they’re not present. I made a choice to be here, just like they made a choice to be elsewhere. They’re happy, and I’m happy. They’re back this weekend for the Old Boys celebrations, and yes, we’ll have a great time at dinner on Saturday and at brunch the next morning, but in all actuality when they leave on Sunday I’ll be le ft with the research for a new paper that I’m itching to crack on with, an MCR who are really lovely and fun and a slowly growing amount of current undergraduates I know. These might not be my people just yet, but hopefully I’m one step closer to becoming one of theirs. And if you see me in the smoking area at Life, please say hi.
Friday 27 September 2013
Flashback: Michaelmas Column 1
Full issue can be found here: http://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/assets/downloads/TCS_Volume14_Michaelmas_Issue1.pdf
One never thinks that a gown will make one cry, but that’s exactly what mine did this week when I heard from the president of my new governing body, the MCR, that I needed a new gown, forcing me to bid farewell to my navy lined formal companion.
Goodbye dear friend of 2008 to 2011. May your wax stains and slightly wine-smelling fabric rest peacefully in the big wardrobe in the sky. The fact of the matter is that I’m still eighteen, you see, and therefore have no need of the postgraduate student’s friend the BA gown.
No, don’t laugh. Whilst my birth certificate and the behaviour of my peers might encourage you to believe that I am really twenty two, a graduate of two degree programmes and survivor of more bad dates than you’ve had hot dinners, my lad, the truth will out: I’m stuck in the mindset in several crucial ways of an eighteen year old fresher.
I am ridiculously excited at the prospect of coming (back) to Cambridge, but the problem mainly lies in that I’m not quite sure what to expect when I get here. I mean, the last time I thought I was coming back to Cambridge I had a captaincy, a sort-of boyfriend, and a whole host of friends waiting for me until one mark in one exam redistributed my papers and my final grade and I ended up jetting off to Edinburgh for a year.
This time, not so much. My captaincy has been taken by a more qualified candidate; the now ex has a new girlfriend; the friends have jobs, have postgrad places elsewhere, have lives no longer situated in one small university town. No biggie, though, right? My mum keeps dropping hints that I should be thinking about ‘reinventing myself ’ but unless I were to chemically straighten my hair, laser my eyes and physically beat my need to geek out from my impulses with a giant hammer I can’t see it happening.
Instead I’m being a very much Fresher-type person in my very much un-Fresher town, joining new clubs and talking to new people and trying very, very hard not to remember that I have been here once before, and it was amazing.
One never thinks that a gown will make one cry, but that’s exactly what mine did this week when I heard from the president of my new governing body, the MCR, that I needed a new gown, forcing me to bid farewell to my navy lined formal companion.
Goodbye dear friend of 2008 to 2011. May your wax stains and slightly wine-smelling fabric rest peacefully in the big wardrobe in the sky. The fact of the matter is that I’m still eighteen, you see, and therefore have no need of the postgraduate student’s friend the BA gown.
No, don’t laugh. Whilst my birth certificate and the behaviour of my peers might encourage you to believe that I am really twenty two, a graduate of two degree programmes and survivor of more bad dates than you’ve had hot dinners, my lad, the truth will out: I’m stuck in the mindset in several crucial ways of an eighteen year old fresher.
I am ridiculously excited at the prospect of coming (back) to Cambridge, but the problem mainly lies in that I’m not quite sure what to expect when I get here. I mean, the last time I thought I was coming back to Cambridge I had a captaincy, a sort-of boyfriend, and a whole host of friends waiting for me until one mark in one exam redistributed my papers and my final grade and I ended up jetting off to Edinburgh for a year.
This time, not so much. My captaincy has been taken by a more qualified candidate; the now ex has a new girlfriend; the friends have jobs, have postgrad places elsewhere, have lives no longer situated in one small university town. No biggie, though, right? My mum keeps dropping hints that I should be thinking about ‘reinventing myself ’ but unless I were to chemically straighten my hair, laser my eyes and physically beat my need to geek out from my impulses with a giant hammer I can’t see it happening.
Instead I’m being a very much Fresher-type person in my very much un-Fresher town, joining new clubs and talking to new people and trying very, very hard not to remember that I have been here once before, and it was amazing.
Saturday 3 August 2013
parkrun 3.8.13
Last week, last Sunday to be precise, I returned from my normal Cambridge environs to my hometown in south Manchester. I'm between accommodations and waiting on some results before making any concrete plans, so I thought that a trip home would fill the time nicely. Since I came home I have:
- been to the pool and wanted to drown myself due to the total ignorance of lane etiquette and people swimming very, very slowly
- watched hailstones cast miniature dents in my car roof
- taken to catnapping anywhere just to escape the tedium of being skint and on a diet
- cleared out my wardrobe, for chocolate is a cruel mistress and my old jeans no longer fit
- steadfastly ignored all of the things I should be doing and emails I should have replied to
So last night I realised I should probably kick my behind into action and get my act together. This short stay at home is not just a jolly because I do have work to do, actions to organise, jobs and funds to apply for, etc. Starting all this on a Friday evening seemed a bit overwhelming though to be honest so I reckoned I'd give it a go over the weekend - and what better way to kickstart your weekend than parkrun?
Parkrun (www.parkrun.org.uk) organises free timed 5k runs every Saturday morning all over the UK, and indeed now the world. My local one has been going on for ages - this morning's run was the 267th, so work that out maths fans, because I can't. Anyway it's safe to say that I've been doing parkrun since 2009, when I was a young slim sometime rower looking to stay fit over the summer.
The great thing about parkrun is that it's always there. Every time I come home, I make sure I turn out at 9am on Saturday to amble over 5k through the park. The route features Duck Poo Corner, how could I resist. I've done parkrun in Santa hats running on snow, in the rain, in the sun, once memorably in hail. I've run with friends, with my iPod on my own, and with the small children who always beat me every week on the sprint finish. I absolutely love turning up and seeing the mix of people who are there, from serious club runners and triathletes, to people looking to improve their PBs, to families running together, and to novice and newbie runners who are drawn in by the spirit of community around parkrun.
Today's 5k was especially delicious because the sun shone, my iPod blessed me with some cracking tunes, and the run felt good. I was slow, 31.42, but it was also busy and I just can't be bothered with all this overtaking nonsense because it's a bit of a faff and whoever I overtake just overtakes me back on the hills. The hills are always a shock when I come back from flat, flat Cambridge but today I just breathed deeply and made it through them. I had a really solid jog round which felt nice and as if I had a bit more in reserve, but I've not been running very much lately so I just wanted to get through the 5k with no issues. However this has inspired me to get back out there for the rest of the summer, and to blog a bit more as well.
So thank you to parkrun, especially Bramhall parkrun, my local, for being so continuously excellent. It couldn't be done without the volunteers and I'll definitely be making more effort to get involved in the Cambridge parkrun when I get back there in a few weeks. Good run, everyone. Good run.
Wednesday 2 January 2013
Is It Just Me?
To which I can confidently reply: no, Miranda, it is not 'just you'. It's me too.
So hello! And welcome to my first book review of this year. Yes, I am aware that I sound more than uncannily like Miranda when I say that. I recently expressed my desire to be half as brilliant as the televisual Miranda [TM] (as opposed to Miranda Hart [MH], authoress and portrayer of Chummy in 'Call the Midwife') and my sister N merely regarded me and said, "Well, you're halfway there" little expecting the joyful hug and bark of delight she received in response. It's true - I have been known to sing Beyonce ("To the left, to the left...") as a directional statement. It works brilliantly.
Perhaps I am not the most objective reviewer in this case, but I can say that I did really enjoy this book. As a matter of fact I raced my way through it today, making it the first out of (hopefully) two hundred that I will read this year (actually a fairly doable NYResolution, considering I read 133 last year without really going for it) and then had a whole hour in the swimming pool to think about it and start mentally drafting this review.
During that hour or so I did this
Warm up:
200m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke
Main set:
200m free off 3mins*
100m I.M. off 1.50
300m free off 4.45
100m I.M. off 1.50
200m free off 3
(set repeated x 3)
Sprint set:
10x25 Belugas - so named as they give you the lung capacity of a small beluga whale. Swim underwater for half a length, emerge from water, sprint polo frontcrawl (head up, elbows high) to end. Breathe clinging to side for between 5-8 seconds. Rinse and repeat 10 times.
Warm down:
100m free. 100m backstroke.
Leg set**:
20 seconds at elbows out
30 seconds at hands on head
1 minute at arms out
30 seconds at hands on head
20 seconds at elbows out
9 jumps (right hand, left hand, both hands)
(set repeated x 5)
So safe to say I had plenty of time to think about 'Is It Just Me?' This is made more relevant by the fact that I had a serious case of lane rage due to the exceedingly slow male swimmer in front of me refusing to abide by swimming etiquette and let me overtake when necessary. 'Yes, Miranda, it's not just you,' I thought. 'It's definitely me too. It's not normal to contemplate swimming underneath someone just to get in front of them and really irritate them in the process. It's just not.'
See, the book may well be called 'Is It Just Me?' but the problem lies in the paradox of that title. Do I mean paradox? I think I do. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The whole point is for us, as readers, to agree with Miranda - an authorial Miranda who appears to be a curious mix of TM and MH (see above) - that it is not, actually, just her, and that all of us experience those awkward moments where, as Hart says, one needs a 'manual. A Miranual!' to get through unscathed. Yet although these moments do occur, there are in fact several jarring incidences, which I refuse to believe are 100% true as they resemble her sitcom more than anything I have ever known to be actual life such as when she traps her skirt under the wheels of a swivel chair and is left pantsless in front of a panel of interviewers, where the reader thinks: 'No, Miranda - in this case it really is just you.'
I feel terrible saying that. Anyone who knows me well will know that I am not the most graceful of ladies. I have a tendency to embarrass myself incredibly well when libations have been taken. Often I am known to cackle loudly at awkward situations and sometimes even ensure they happen just so I can make 'hilarious' hand gestures - awkward turtle, anyone? But I just could not imagine some of these situations happening.
I was also not entirely enamoured with the constant popping up of LM, Little Miranda, a stylised 18 year old version of Hart, who dialogues with the present-day Miranda about incidents old and new. At times this felt a little stilted and I could not entirely get into it; but at other times, such as in the chapters about dogs, relationships, and beauty, I really thought it worked. Same goes for the dramatic script interludes - better in the small doses.
What Hart does really well, though, is a list. Oh, I love a good hilarious list. My tastes are simple, and were easily pleased when the ten best things about being tall were EXACTLY THE SAME as the ten worst things about being tall. And a pun. There are some excellent, unashamedly barefaced puns in this book, and a great sense of the jolly hockey sticks vibe that Hart has become known for.
Yet the best moments, the altogether shining lights, were when TM took a back seat and MH came out properly. The sincere and lovely writing in beauty, especially, was much more understated and the simple touches of humour rather than full-frontal assault was much appreciated. Miranda (for I feel I can call her that. I am altogether her imaginary best friend) really knows how to get down to the nub and gist of an idea without being rudely blunt about it, which I admire as a skill and as a writing technique.
As you can tell from this overly long blog post I have not yet mastered it myself.
On balance, the book is probably rated 7/10 for me. A bit too confused in its authorial sense, it seeks to fill gaps with humour which would serve better if it simply highlighted the all-round loveliness of Miranda's meaning, rather than being the meat of the writing. It did make me laugh rather a lot, and I did emerge thinking - 'No. It's not just you. I do love stationery...'
I promise the reviews will get better, I'm a little out of practice. Next one comes out on Saturday!
S xx
*um...so for non-swimmers, this means that you have 3 minutes to swim the 8 lengths and recover. Then you set off on the next thing.
**for non water-polo players, we spend a lot of time trying to strengthen our legs so that we can get out of the water higher to pass, catch and defend better. This means we have to kick like this, and doing leg sets with your hands/arms out of the water tends to make you better. But I'm still a rubbish player however many leg sets I do.
 |
| Miranda and I have very similar facial expressions, actually. |
Perhaps I am not the most objective reviewer in this case, but I can say that I did really enjoy this book. As a matter of fact I raced my way through it today, making it the first out of (hopefully) two hundred that I will read this year (actually a fairly doable NYResolution, considering I read 133 last year without really going for it) and then had a whole hour in the swimming pool to think about it and start mentally drafting this review.
During that hour or so I did this
Warm up:
200m freestyle, 100m backstroke, 100m breaststroke
Main set:
200m free off 3mins*
100m I.M. off 1.50
300m free off 4.45
100m I.M. off 1.50
200m free off 3
(set repeated x 3)
Sprint set:
10x25 Belugas - so named as they give you the lung capacity of a small beluga whale. Swim underwater for half a length, emerge from water, sprint polo frontcrawl (head up, elbows high) to end. Breathe clinging to side for between 5-8 seconds. Rinse and repeat 10 times.
Warm down:
100m free. 100m backstroke.
Leg set**:
20 seconds at elbows out
30 seconds at hands on head
1 minute at arms out
30 seconds at hands on head
20 seconds at elbows out
9 jumps (right hand, left hand, both hands)
(set repeated x 5)
So safe to say I had plenty of time to think about 'Is It Just Me?' This is made more relevant by the fact that I had a serious case of lane rage due to the exceedingly slow male swimmer in front of me refusing to abide by swimming etiquette and let me overtake when necessary. 'Yes, Miranda, it's not just you,' I thought. 'It's definitely me too. It's not normal to contemplate swimming underneath someone just to get in front of them and really irritate them in the process. It's just not.'
See, the book may well be called 'Is It Just Me?' but the problem lies in the paradox of that title. Do I mean paradox? I think I do. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. The whole point is for us, as readers, to agree with Miranda - an authorial Miranda who appears to be a curious mix of TM and MH (see above) - that it is not, actually, just her, and that all of us experience those awkward moments where, as Hart says, one needs a 'manual. A Miranual!' to get through unscathed. Yet although these moments do occur, there are in fact several jarring incidences, which I refuse to believe are 100% true as they resemble her sitcom more than anything I have ever known to be actual life such as when she traps her skirt under the wheels of a swivel chair and is left pantsless in front of a panel of interviewers, where the reader thinks: 'No, Miranda - in this case it really is just you.'
I feel terrible saying that. Anyone who knows me well will know that I am not the most graceful of ladies. I have a tendency to embarrass myself incredibly well when libations have been taken. Often I am known to cackle loudly at awkward situations and sometimes even ensure they happen just so I can make 'hilarious' hand gestures - awkward turtle, anyone? But I just could not imagine some of these situations happening.
I was also not entirely enamoured with the constant popping up of LM, Little Miranda, a stylised 18 year old version of Hart, who dialogues with the present-day Miranda about incidents old and new. At times this felt a little stilted and I could not entirely get into it; but at other times, such as in the chapters about dogs, relationships, and beauty, I really thought it worked. Same goes for the dramatic script interludes - better in the small doses.
What Hart does really well, though, is a list. Oh, I love a good hilarious list. My tastes are simple, and were easily pleased when the ten best things about being tall were EXACTLY THE SAME as the ten worst things about being tall. And a pun. There are some excellent, unashamedly barefaced puns in this book, and a great sense of the jolly hockey sticks vibe that Hart has become known for.
Yet the best moments, the altogether shining lights, were when TM took a back seat and MH came out properly. The sincere and lovely writing in beauty, especially, was much more understated and the simple touches of humour rather than full-frontal assault was much appreciated. Miranda (for I feel I can call her that. I am altogether her imaginary best friend) really knows how to get down to the nub and gist of an idea without being rudely blunt about it, which I admire as a skill and as a writing technique.
As you can tell from this overly long blog post I have not yet mastered it myself.
On balance, the book is probably rated 7/10 for me. A bit too confused in its authorial sense, it seeks to fill gaps with humour which would serve better if it simply highlighted the all-round loveliness of Miranda's meaning, rather than being the meat of the writing. It did make me laugh rather a lot, and I did emerge thinking - 'No. It's not just you. I do love stationery...'
I promise the reviews will get better, I'm a little out of practice. Next one comes out on Saturday!
S xx
*um...so for non-swimmers, this means that you have 3 minutes to swim the 8 lengths and recover. Then you set off on the next thing.
**for non water-polo players, we spend a lot of time trying to strengthen our legs so that we can get out of the water higher to pass, catch and defend better. This means we have to kick like this, and doing leg sets with your hands/arms out of the water tends to make you better. But I'm still a rubbish player however many leg sets I do.
Tuesday 1 January 2013
First run of the year
Ah, breathe that scent. Breathe it deeply. Ahhhhhh, I hear you cry. Yes! That's right! It's the new year! 2013 is come upon us my friends.
I spent a very pleasant NYE at a potluck dinner party reunion with the Brightsiders, my crew from my schooldays, returning home at about 11 to see in the new year with my parents' infinitely more tasty prosecco stash and another viewing of 'A Knight's Tale'. Yeh, I'm boring. I know.
Perhaps I consumed too much prosecco (this is a definite) because I was really not keen on going out for a run today. It felt like I was the last survivor of a zombie apocalypse when I got up this morning, awoken very early after I kicked the wall very hard in my sleep, and staggered to the kitchen for life-restoring orange juice.
Yet drag myself out I did, especially when I realised I would have to blog guiltily tonight if I didn't go. So I recruited my tall ginger brother so that I would feel accountable, and set off.
Oh it was horrible. It was terrible. I had to face my mid-run nemesis of the Hill. I hate the Hill. It mars the middle of my lovely 5k route with a desperate sense of being unfit. Oh, Hill.
Today the Hill meant that I felt incredibly ill all the way up it, as the challenge is to get up at the same pace as running the previous downhill section, regretting that final glass of Chablis last night. Yet after that, for the second half of the route, and after the run itself I did feel much better, testament to the recuperative powers of exercise. And smug. Very smug.
Alright, it may have been a mere three miles ish, but I still felt that lovely sense you get when running of being somehow so intensely in the moment that you are in fact out of yourself, where you zone into something altogether bigger and everything clicks. It's nice when that happens, and it is often when you push yourself through a barrier of discomfort that you get that sensation.
Mo' running mo' miles tomorrow. See when I see you, Hill.
Mile count: 3
I spent a very pleasant NYE at a potluck dinner party reunion with the Brightsiders, my crew from my schooldays, returning home at about 11 to see in the new year with my parents' infinitely more tasty prosecco stash and another viewing of 'A Knight's Tale'. Yeh, I'm boring. I know.
Perhaps I consumed too much prosecco (this is a definite) because I was really not keen on going out for a run today. It felt like I was the last survivor of a zombie apocalypse when I got up this morning, awoken very early after I kicked the wall very hard in my sleep, and staggered to the kitchen for life-restoring orange juice.
Yet drag myself out I did, especially when I realised I would have to blog guiltily tonight if I didn't go. So I recruited my tall ginger brother so that I would feel accountable, and set off.
Oh it was horrible. It was terrible. I had to face my mid-run nemesis of the Hill. I hate the Hill. It mars the middle of my lovely 5k route with a desperate sense of being unfit. Oh, Hill.
Today the Hill meant that I felt incredibly ill all the way up it, as the challenge is to get up at the same pace as running the previous downhill section, regretting that final glass of Chablis last night. Yet after that, for the second half of the route, and after the run itself I did feel much better, testament to the recuperative powers of exercise. And smug. Very smug.
Alright, it may have been a mere three miles ish, but I still felt that lovely sense you get when running of being somehow so intensely in the moment that you are in fact out of yourself, where you zone into something altogether bigger and everything clicks. It's nice when that happens, and it is often when you push yourself through a barrier of discomfort that you get that sensation.
Mo' running mo' miles tomorrow. See when I see you, Hill.
Mile count: 3
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