Pay by 2010

Wow the past two days have been very busy with writing essays and doing other work; and it looks like the next week will be like that too. Had a nice film evening on Thursday night, even though only Ruth and Chris showed up.. we just chatted for a long time and watched some Simpsons in the end. I had a nice bible study with Patrick before that, and on Thursday lunch time I’d been working in the UL for a bit and met up with Heather, Liz and Emma for lunch – I’ve really not seen those guys much this term so that was nice.

Friday I had a supervision at 9 and then did some work after it. The supervision went well; he said the essay was good and he only criticised it on two relatively minor points and we were basically done after 20 minutes. I met up with Lorna for lunch and we had a really nice chat for about 2 hours. It was quite amusing trying to meet up with her; we had arranged to meet at Selwyn and I phoned her to say I was there. “Hi Lorna, I’m at the porter’s lodge; are you around?” “Hi Mark, I’m in the porters lodge too!” “Uhhh I don’t see you” “Wait a minute, which porter’s lodge are you at?” “Umm.. Selwyn as we arranged” “Ah, I’m at Sidney as I thought we’d agreed!”. D’oh. In the afternoon, I went to the France prayer group for a bit of fun and we stayed around chatting for a while afterwards.

After this, I had to dash back to Sidney for my “Academic Review” with the master. It’s strange that all final years have to have a review with the person who knows them probably the least of all in the college. Don’t get me wrong; she’s a wonderful person and she says hi when I pass her in the corridors or whatever, but it seems a lot more sensible to meet with the director of studies, or someone who actually knows where you’re coming from and what you’re doing. She basically just looked at my grades (which improved since switching to theology) and talked about next year and asked how I was finding this year, said well done and I was out of there within 5 minutes. I’m really not sure how that’s supposed to motivate someone to do well, or to stop someone from doing poorly.

In the evening, there was the Harry’s christmas dinner which was very packed. So packed indeed, that I was asked to leave. I went home and slept for a bit because I’d not been getting much sleep recently, and then went back at the end to meet Mehmet and Resin (Mehmet’s wife) and take them to see Ruth as they didn’t know where she lived this year. I went to see Serena and Felicity to collect some of my commentaries from them as I’m meant to be preparing the Bible study in college group this week (Wow – CICCU has declared me clean…).

I had a strange form from the inland revenue through the post, asking for some money. I don’t really understand it but this thing on the back of the payment slip caught my attention: “If you wish to pay, payments must be received before 06/04/2010.” Given most bills give you until the end of the month, if you’re lucky, 5 years seem rather far fetched…