Right, time for a catch up.

World, you amazing thing, you've finally done it. I've found a University I would love to go to. Before I say where it is, I shall give you the reasons for my choice. The buildings were amazing. They have old, boarding school style buildings but with a massive, modern building as the hub of it all. It was in a quiet little city (I suppose, they have a famous cathedral), with a very close and totally not-wild feel to it. It's one hour on the train from London Waterloo. The guy who did the journalism talk was fantastic and made it very clear what would be expected of us. Their practical production suite was AMAZING. I actually feel very up for the challenge of their selection process (interview, practical and academic tests). The place is Winchester, people, and it is perfect.

On a totally unrelated note -

LAURA AND I ARE GOING TO SEE THE PSYCHOVILLE HALLOWE'EN SPECIAL IN LESS THAN A WEEK WITH THE AMAZING AND UTTERLY BRILLIANT MR REECE SHEARSMITH IN ATTENDANCE!

Once upon a time there was a garden. I was a very nice garden, lots of care had gone into it to make it look lovely and memorable and often people would walk past it and look at it and mutter to each other about how nice it was. It's distinguishing features included a large wooden obelisk in the centre, a spiral of paving slabs (now slightly hidden by plants and flowers) and a large window (or hole) in the hedge. Said hedge was designed to look, apparently, like two elephants following each other. A stone wall was also in place to stop the beautiful garden growing outwards into the street.

One cold dark night, however, an evil machine called a BMW Car decided that it didn't like the stone wall, or the wooden gatepost with the number 19 on it, or, indeed, one of the elephants, and thought that the best thing to do would be to drive itself into said things and knock them all over.

The wall was reduced to rubble, spilling out onto the pavement, the gatepost was knocked backwards and the elephant has been cut in half.

At the very same time, a girl was asleep in the bedroom at the front of the house. Hearing a loud banging sound, she put it down to a car driving over a recycling box and smashing it to pieces. The girl's cat was, at the time, wrapped tightly around her neck, its wheezy face on hers. She was unable to get up.

Finding the destruction the following morning, the girl felt guilty for not following her usual nosy reaction of leaping to the window to see what the noise was therefore, did not get a number plate of the BMW Car, and the perpetrator has escaped.

As the girl's brother pointed out, however, the people across the road have a BMW, and their car hasn't been seen since.

Okay, so last night was seriously one of the most awesome nights I've ever had. The day was great (though I didn't accept my Fox's Glacier Mint reward at the arcade), we walked a lot and ate stuff from Cyber Candy and then went to the BFI with, as it is aptly named, the nice surpise of some Bonus!Reece.

Laura's blog pretty much covers everything, so I'm just posting photos and saying that OMGOKGMGOKGMOMGGOMG like I did last night with Laura as we jumped up and down and literally flailed in our seats at the awesomeness of it all. Humatity does sometimes throw up some really wonderful things. And it was amazing to be able to enjoy it all with other like-minded people.

And on a serious note, my laptop has fallen suddenly into its grave so you know, infrequent blogging will be even more infrequent. Poo.

Now to find a frame...

Sorry, I haven't blogged for a while. It's been a bit hectic. It still is, actually, but I'm sitting here watching Nigella Kitchen wondering how on Earth she has the energy to bake a peanut butter cheesecake in the middle of the night, and I thought it'd be best that I finally do a blog.

I'm working full time at the moment, this week and next week. It's hard but not unpleasant. People tend to be nice and I'm starting to recognise customers and their orders. Lunchtimes are impossible; the queue is often right out the door. Plus my feet ache.

I went to Worcester on Sunday to check out the university, and it was pretty nice. The journalism course looks pretty cool, and there seems to be a possibility of a semester abroad which was not mentioned in the prospectus. Either way, when she was talking about internet journalism, and she asked who had a blog, I was the only one who put a hand up. Kudos.

I seem to have pretty much sealed the deal on being the Press and Publicity Officer for the Carlisle United Supporters' Club London Branch, or rather, Dad has. I appear to have the backing of the club members and quite frankly, it's going to look impressive on my CV and more importantly, my personal statement. Chester on Saturday.

I hope I'm back for Merlin.

Hello, world. New blog, new start.

And so, as many of my age group set out on their next big adventure, Uni, I stay behind. Laura, Anne, Doug and myself face at least half a year slotting the pieces (idealistic and realistic) of our individual lives together and making plans for next year.

My decision as far as Maths goes looks to be this - enter myself for the summer GCSE and get myself a tutor in order to get the teaching part of it sorted. I'll be going into school on Wednesday to see if that can be arranged. Followed by League of Gentlemen raves at Laura's. See? I have my priorities sorted.

I've been asked to work full time for a couple of weeks at Simmons in order to cover for the co-manager who's off to Florida on Tuesday. I'll work this Friday and Saturday, then two weeks, then a Monday and then I'm done. It'll be tiring but shouldn't be all that bad.

On the 12th of October, I've booked tickets for Laura and I to go to a special preview of The Sarah Jane Adventures episode entitled Death of the Doctor. The showing will apparently be followed by a panel discussion with Elisabeth Sladen and the producers, script editors etc. It says cast and crew in attendence, though I don't know if that just means the aforementioned or others, but I guess we won't know until we get there. It's going to be AWESOME though.

I have an open day at the University of Worcester on Sunday to look forward to as well.

Bon. That's what's been happening with me, cool cool?

So I was watching The One Show earlier this evening, and Stephen Fry was the guest, and he made a point that triggered a stream of thought in my little brain. He was talking about how he only went to three lectures at University, because they cut into his own personal schedules. When asked what he did instead, he answered that he read books, digested them, thought about them and discussed them. That was the way he learnt.

And, since finishing school, I've found myself with this thirst for intellectuality that I can't seem to stop. Not that I didn't read before, but since getting back from Corfu I've gone from book to book to book without any prolonged pauses. Maybe it's because I have more time on my hands but I certainly didn't make time in the evenings and mornings where I'd read for an hour in the past.

I've caught myself willingly watching documentaries on BBC4 and watching the news instead of breakfast television. I'm listening to Classic FM and the BBC Proms on iPlayer in my free time. I'm reading the Money, Work and main sections of the Guardian rather than just the Weekend and Sport.

Perhaps for this reason, being told today that Luton College's Maths GCSE course is full and that I can't study there, or at West Herts (who ~helpfully told Dad and I when I went to enrol last week that they'd pulled the course a week before) is making me more depressed than I'm being told it probably should. All colleges have begun their terms.

I don't know what to do. I'm worrying.

No Maths GCSE = no Uni, no employment in my future and generally, well, nothing.

Geez, what a downer blog. I didn't mean it to be. Honest.

MY FRIENDS AND OTHER PIGEONS
A video account of Corfu. Or some of it, anyway.