life and spark

hi blog. today is chilly and bright. my windows this morning are bordered with misty arcs of condensation.

the last few days have been strange, i had a bad practical criticism supervision in which the supervisor made me so angry that i wanted to shout at him. i don't want to talk about that here. and i have spent a couple of days fretting that i shouldn't miss the closing date for the mellon exchange, but then asking myself if i really want to do it, and so on. I have decided this morning that i don't want to do it, i think i need a break from studying altogether and i also think that the sooner i enter the real world, the better. Being at Cambridge is, to use the cliche, living in a bubble. at once this is positive, as it engenders strong relationships and a reassuring sheltered feeling. but at the same time it is easy to forget that cambridge is not at all like the world outside, and that what is here is not all there is. i think a large part of why my first year here was so miserable was because i failed to realise this and became very concerned that i didn't 'fit in' at my college, which i ridiculously assumed to be a microcosm of the world outside. and i am happier now because i no longer really care, and because i feel like i have found friends who stimulate me as a person and make me happy. and that matters.

i am a bit scared today because i am convinced that a tooth i chipped about 4 months ago is getting more and more chipped. i know this is probably just my hypochondria going into overdrive as it always does when i'm stressed (the other day, as i lay in bed, i was convinced i was having a stroke), but i booked an appointment with the dentist to have a crown put on it. but my appointment is next week and i'm convincing myself that it will have crumbled into nothingness by then. Eek.

on a positive note, i have decided that i am going to write my dissertation on Muriel Spark because i love her too much to let her go. much to hannah's amusement i got an huge red Muriel Spark Omnibus out of the library, which i plan to peruse over the next few weeks. i don't know how i'm going to manage with carrying it around, though. Love will find a way, i suppose. today i'm seeing anne to discuss what i'm doing; fingers crossed.

Anyway blog i must depart, people to do, things to see, chipped teeth to be made worse by playing with incessantly avec tongue. or something.

bye!

oh and two more things.
i was sitting in borders the other day and was fascinated by the ridiculous numbers of diet books available. they are all garish and shouty and they make me sad. why does modern man seem to have become less and less capable of common sense, so insecure that nothing can be done without a horrifying amount of guidance and support? or has man always been this way, and is this modern trend just taking advantage of this?

and yesterday i fell over and tripped into the road, which was mercifully (and unusually) free of cars. if there had been cars driving at the speed they normally do on that road i would surely have been hit. it made me feel lucky to be alive (like the pipe incident) but made me wonder how many times i have escaped death in the past and simply accepted and forgotten it. strange thing, life.