It's the final countdown

Tomorrow, I have my penultimate final. As ever, I'm unprepared! So far, these exams have gone by in a blur but these last two are beginning to drag as everyone around me seems to be finishing. There are carnations, confetti and cries of joy all over college and it's becoming harder to keep my focus. I don't have the same determination I did at the start of this (near three week long!) process and am not really putting my heart into these last exams. I think my slight apathy is exacerbated by my worry about what I've done so far plus thoughts for next week with lots to organise and lots going on. I should be focused on my last two papers. Instead I'm thinking: when will I have time to get ready, when will I pack, will I be able to fit this event in; have I made the right decision to sign up for this, did I remember to book that train...

I think it's obvious that I need to breathe.
Then focus. Two more days. Less than forty eight hours. If I've made it through four years of trials and tribulations I sure can't let this last couple of days drag me down. However it's gone so far, I have the decision about how to act on these two, even if it's only a desperate decision to hurl everything I've got. Four and a half more hours in my exam hall and I'm finished.

Time for some tea, me thinks.

Balls, balls, balls ....

Being summer in England it is, of course, chucking it down with torrential rain - in August; I mean honestly. Confined to the house as I am, I can think of no better way to pass the time than to fill you all in with how my term ended ...

On the day of the ball, I picked up my friend from home who, despite staying only for one night, had managed to accumulate five suitcases! I can veritably hear the baffled cries of my readers: how can one person need so many bags, indeed five times the amount of bags one might originally assume? Why, by bringing three changes of outfit for one evening, of course. My friend is nothing if not a glamorous trouper.  After the aerobic workout that was getting them up the six flights of stairs to my room, situated in the eaves of my college, the girls came over to get ready. The night was amazing - from hairstylists, to vodka fountains, a thousands types of food, gorgeous fireworks accompanied by wonderful music, dodgems, ferris wheels, shisha, jazz bands; Tinchy Strider even made an appearance! All was a blur of excitement.

However, I am most definitely a morning lark, not a night owl, and love to go to bed early so as to wake at dawn, enjoy the quiet calm before the traffic starts and college awakes. Needless to say, I was a little worried about how to make it from 6.30pm to 7.30am straight without collapsing from sheer exhaustion! But, without getting drunk and without the need of an IV of caffeine, I danced my way through the night. A slight slump around 2.30am was cured by an amazingly effective power sit (totes the new power nap). Amazing night with amazing friends ... though not such amazing sleep afterwards since I was top and tailing with two others in a single bed! Two hours sleep + packing + four hour trip back to London does not make for a happy girlie ...