Day 1: 5am feelings of dread and dreadful excitement

Huuuuuuuggghhh.

Bleeeeggghhh.

Right. I'm semi-human now. Almost human. Coffee is helping, and a plate of massively overpriced eggs, bacon and toast should complete the transformation from rising ape to falling angel.

I'm writing from Aberdeen Airport, where my first flight of the day will take off. There is an absolutely hateful child running about with apparently unlimited energy: quite frankly when I feel like this there's no need to ram it home by being filled with the immortal spirit of Youth.

There's not much else to add for the moment. There will likely be an update from Heathrow and, if I have not gone completely loopy from jetlag, another from the hostel in New York City.

Til then: here we are. And here's my grub. Pip-pip.

Paralysis at the last moment

I am, as ever, struck by the last minute terror of having everything to do and not enough time in which to do it, to whit:

• I must finish an essay (although it's only two hundred words more and quite frankly the conclusion essentially writes itself: "I was really trying to make this book fit the argument I'm proposing and clearly it doesn't; please give me marks for recognising that.")
• I must pack. I am leaving for the US in (hahahahahahohgoodlord) 30 hours or so. However, there is a caveat and I shall talk about it later.
• I must prep things for the ascas
• I must do some filming (if you would like to help me film something with the reward of eternal love and gratitude and work in any sector aside from hospitality, please get in touch!)
• I must get my applications in because apparently summer internships do not award themselves based on people who really, really want them but don't like application forms for their uncreative and systematic approach to human beings, who are creative and asystematic
• I must ring bank and phone company to tell them I'll be leaving the country.

But let's talk about the US, and the way that Barack has totally blackballed me from his party mansion in D.C. Yup, I'm going halfway across the world to see this:

More like the Cream House, amiright?

...except probably from further away. And surrounded by the other people who either failed their security checks or didn't get them done in time. I am severely annoyed that I am in either of these two groups.

No, I'm not going to tell you which I'm in. You know me. You can guess.

What else is new? I suppose there's the fact that The Woman and I are now on speaking terms, which is a relief because I'd rather not lose a friend like that. I suppose there's also the fact that I've almost finished an essay and it is - this should not be a feeling I experience in Junior Honours, but - the first essay I have finished in good time and am genuinely proud of. Honestly. The referencing is gorgeous, the argument is solid and balanced, and I have quotes. And it's in French. (That bit's an extra bonus: I like being able to write in French.)

I mean my bags aren't packed and I've spent an hour helping a friend with romantic entanglements and in the group that I moderate I've had to go all tyrannical to remove a couple of people who truly believe in "reverse racism" and, well.

It's been a stressful damn day.

Still, all things considered and viewed from the other side: I helped a friend, I preserved a safe space for non-believers and I discovered that people halfway across the world appreciate the work I do.

Plus I learnt about potential exciting internships at +British Council and I'm going to be getting on those the minute I touch back down.

The next month is doubtlessly going to make or break me. Getting the fear a little.

But only a little.

The Elections Are Over

We have a new executive committee, I have had 6 hours sleep, and I'm facing a half-written essay with my mind on one thing, and one thing only. Food. I am starving, but I can't bring myself to heat up food and put it in the hole I breathe out of.

We're quite gross, us human beings, when you think about it.

But elections are over, so let's focus on that before we lose our thread and realise we're just fleshy bags of mostly-water held up by a framework of bones. Elections are over! And we have a shiny new Sabb team with a few faces from the old guard.

The experience over the past few days has been something quite astonishing, because it turns out that people are actually curious about all this democracy. Over 2,000 votes were cast, or one in seven students: a result that's really very, very exciting. I spoke to so many people and did not get a single blow-off or mean comment. People who love me have said that's because I'm good with people. Personally I am loathe to trust anyone who says they love me, because most of those people have seen me early in the morning and even I struggle to love myself at that hour - but there it is. Let us leave it as a moot point and accept that either I am good with people or people are generally good and democratic and inclined to give people a chance if they stop them in the street. I hope it's the latter over the former, to be quite honest.

She did it! V did it! And I helped.
(Not to choose the socks. That one's all on her)

The campaign with which I was helping, themed around Rosie the Riveter, saw Veronika elected to the position in which you see her above. There were tears and roars at the announcement, but unfortunately had to skip the ensuing party - which I feel I can safely assume was legendary - to make sure I got some work done before the USA trip, which is a fairly frightening five days away. My agenda between now and then is, thankfully, almost empty: gods bless reading week. I've still to pack and, quite possibly, buy a new suit - and new shoes - after all, what sort of savage only takes one suit across the pond?

In any case, the work plods on. I am about a third through an essay, which is a massive improvement on the last time I did an essay (if you imagine me at 5am shaking because of a massive caffeine overdose and feverishly writing then you have (a) an excellent imagination and (b) an exact image of me writing my last essay.) I'm helped in this regard by the fact that I really enjoy the subject: the course is well structured and the lectures are fascinating. The reading is fun too: the end of Monsieur Vénus is the kind of twist Dahl would have considered inspired.

If, by the way, you didn't know Roald Dahl wrote fantastically twisted stories then I urge you to read Tales of the Unexpected at once. That the man had a gloriously bizarre imagination is evidenced in his "children's" books (though, let us remember, that an awful lot of awful people get their very unpleasant comeuppances in them....) but it's in these tales that his imagination really explores some darker places.

Look, we're getting off topic again.

The point is that my life is actually flowing along quite nicely. I am proud of the work I've done with Veronika, I am excited beyond all reasonable measure about the incredible sabbatical team next year, and I'm going to New York New York in six days.

And The Woman is still alive, which is reassuring.

Life is good. And hey, we raised £2m for cancer research! Let's kick cancer with our naked/made up faces. I've done and donated. I hope everyone reading this has done so too.

If only all charity was this easy. And made me look so good.

Many spontaneity. Such luck.

Things other than blogging I should be doing right now:

• Prepping an essay, topic: "Discuss the representation of the body in Mistriss Henley" as I will need to hand it in at least a day early.
• Ringing round various hotels and conference centres to ascertain prices for a grand, black-tie event in May. It's going to be cheap...right?
• Learning approximately 100 new cocktails
• Learning five new words in Russian
• Tidying my flat
• Reading the frankly spine-busting pile of books about French secularism I have accumulated
• Reading the impossibly thick book on the same that is its own pile
• Re-reading The Great Gatsby and annotating the life out of it
• Preparing exercises on further trigonometry (ie doing them)
• And other things which I have, for the moment, forgotten - but will no doubt spring up on me half an hour before their due date.

Things I am actually doing:

• Looking at doge memes
• Blogging
• Seriously considering taking a nap.



The Internet. It speaks the truth. In a Pythian sort of way.

The thing is, there is much new in my life and all of it seems so dull compared to last year - I genuinely think I'm never going to get over the time I spent there. Everything will be compared to it. It is the ultimate in awful breakups, when you never quite get over the other person and everything reminds you of them. Food - is that a baguette I smell? Sights - was that a glimpse of a beret worn non-ironically? And sounds - my head now pivots so quickly when I hear spoken French that my eyes roll the opposite way as inertia takes over. If you can't picture it, don't worry - Walt Disney could. And did.

"Et moi, je lui ai dit...mon dieu, qu'est ce qui t'est arrivé ?!"

However, to take my mind off that French love, I'm going transatlantic for a short fling with a country I only recently left - those fifty United States of America. More specifically, I'm going with the Politics and IR society, and we're going at the end of the month - on the 27th. This is why I need to submit that essay a day early; I'll be somewhere over the ocean at hand-in time. Once Stateside, we've an interesting itinerary with a lot of free time - so I think introducing my classmates to The Book of Mormon or Matilda, if it's still running, might be an excellent idea. 

The itinerary includes a tour around the UN and watching a game at +Columbia University (and hopefully chatting to professors about postgraduate possibilities!), and then we're off to DC to have a tour around +The White House and the Pentagon and various other internationally renowned buildings. Plus more free time. I am disgustingly excited. Friends of mine on politics/IR courses are threatening that they shan't be my friends much longer if I open one more conversation with... 

So the Capitol building, is that where the President lives? Oh, never mind. I'll just ask on the tour.

...or something similar.

I am a good friend. Honest.

Tickets are booked, thanks to the voucher I got from +American Airlines for being a good sport and giving up my seat coming back from Chicago, and all is in readiness. Now I just need to make back the money, which will hopefully be a little easier now that I have a job at TGI Friday's. The whole process was surreally easy; I dropped in and asked if there were vacancies, someone took my CV, and then a second later I was chatting to the GM. The next day I came in for what they call an "On Job Experience" - essentially a trial shift - and was offered the job on the spot. I signed my contract today and got my training book. (Nerd alert).

I'm actually really excited about this because it reminds me a little of Revolution, which has (to date) the best training program I've ever experienced - really well structured and with good supervision and coaching.  In addition everyone on the bar seems wicked and the floor staff seem to have fun all the time, so I cannot wait to get stuck into the cocktails. Unfortunately I can't share them with you here -

Those are some serious legal words, but you can understand why - can't have people nicking recipes.

- so you'll just have to come in and try them.

Since TGI Friday's started in New York, I'm actually planning to see if I can blag my way onto the bar where it all started - and interestingly, the company actually has an internal social network, so I'm hoping to connect with the staff over there beforehand. Hopefully then I can jump on for some photos and Anglo-American high-fives and collaboration. It's going to happen people. Let's do this. Hashtag getJonathanonthebarinNYC

All joking aside, I'm really excited about this new job and the energy everyone has, and I can't wait to feed into it.

Alright, enough soppiness. I have a job, I have good friends (to whom I'm not always a great friend, so - sorry), I have ten thousand projects to keep me busy and I have you, mostly anonymous 100-odd people who read this weird ramblings. I am incredibly lucky. Plus, soon there'll be ASCAs and then...the world.

Oh, and why's it called the Pentagon? Ah, you know what? I'll ask on the tour.

AGM - Speeches and democracy

I ummed and ahhed about this. I especially ummed and ahhed at 3am because I'm supposed to be teaching at 9am, ie 6 hours from now. This is because I am unable to sleep, and this is as a result of having a very troubled mind about all sorts of things, including ASCA (more on that (maybe) later), abortion, relationships, and money.

I should assure my most maternal reader at this point that she does not need to worry about any of these things, and that they will pass. Honestly.

For now I want to bring the attention of UoA readers to the AGM, which took place on Tuesday and was, as ever, the glorious democratic process of 300 students stuffed on pizza being ushered through motions they either didn't know about, hadn't read, or couldn't care less about.

All of the motions were fairly uncontentious on paper and I went with the confidence that - give or take the usual argy-bargy, nitpicking nonsense from the Tory benches (who seem to be pandering to an invisible panel of Thatcherite judges) the whole lot would pass without question.

I was surprisingly wrong, but not surprised at all when it proved so.

The key point from the evening that I'd like to present is a motion by Eva Nohe, the President of Environment and Ethics, to lobby the University to divest from fossil fuels. As +Rob Henthorn pointed out, this was about the University's money. Not ours. Eva just wanted the University to stop profiting from fossil-fuel burning power stations because those same power stations are pumping out climate-changing C02 gas.

At the end of the day, that's a fairly uncontentious desire - one that would be quite easy to get AGM behind. However, Eva's third point was:

To mandate AUSA to lobby the university to stop giving honorary degrees to CEOs of fossil fuel companies 

 And this caused a susurration of...unhappiness, I will call it. A sense in the room that perhaps this was not being well received. However, I feel like it could have been rescued at that point, but in presenting the motion Eva stated that she did not believe that anyone working in oil and gas would have a career in 20 years.

To a room of UoA students, many of whom have travelled across the world to work in this sector, she may as well have stuck two fingers in the air and announced she'd be supporting England in the World Cup. You know the noise that goes through a room, a sort of low rushing breath out? If you've ever been joking about with friends and then, in a fit of madness, overstepped the invisible boundary that everyone instinctively knows is there, then you will know the sound I mean. It is always followed by a second of silence and then a buzz of chatter as each person turns to their neighbour and asks,

Did they really just say that?

The "against" speech was mostly just noises from a very annoyed Environmental Science student, but honestly I think he could have just said "I don't agree" and dropped the mic. The damage was done. The motion fell.

With a single sentence, Eva shot down her own motion. For me, its just hammered home that even if what you are proposing is the most logical thing in the world, if you cannot consider it from your opponent's point of view you might as well pack the whole thing up and go home.

So we did, shortly after. AGM was brief, briefer than it's ever been, and while that was glorious - it hasn't happened before in my memory - I was a little unsettled by the breakneck pace which left more than a couple of questions unanswered on several motions. That would be my only critique; in all other aspects the Chair did an incredibly good job and keeping the room energised (and in the case of more than one student, drunk - drinking games get harder if the Chair finds out the word that triggers a swig!).

Oh! I almost forgot! ASCA!

Not tonight. Maybe later. Promise.

A brief pause and a lack of chocolate

The number of books I should be reading instead of writing is impressive. A visual may help to demonstrate the extent of my procrastination, to whit:

There is a theme. Unfortunately the theme is "Bloody complicated"

But things are slowly coming together, and I have another 5.5 hours before they finally throw me from the building, so all in all not too bad. Aside from the fact that the vending machines are empty. I suspect that's going to become more of a problem as the night wears on, especially knowing that my last chance saloon of cocoa-based goodness closes at midnight. Can my resolve beat my craving for a dark chocolate KitKat?

(probably not)

Since the last time I blogged there has been rather a strange conversation with The Woman, the details of which are complex even in my mind but seem to be paradoxical to say the very least. I shall have to bend my mind to the subject, which actually provides rather a pleasant break from the dissertation.

That needs more emphasis.

The Dissertation

To which the majority of the books in the picture above are dedicated. However, the whole thing's hit a bit of a snag - I opened a book I rather hoped would be one of my core texts and read "research on sexism in language is rare in English and even rarer in French." which has really put a dampener on my whole mood. On the other hand, a friend of mine who's also likely going to spend all night here has expressed jealousy in my chosen topic while two others, one all the way in St Andrews, have told me that it's terribly exciting to be at the forefront of human knowledge (admittedly in a very small area of human knowledge, but still) and I should quit moaning and get writing. 

And since I've finished my soup and that seems like a fitting end, I shall do as advised.

Postscript: The reason I never seem to have any time free is becoming clearer to me, after I spent twenty minutes pondering whether or not I should go to work like this:

Can you believe I've ever had a partner? I can't sometimes.

I am not a smart man.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

At least, it is if you're a fourth year student of French at the University of Aberdeen. If not - if, say, you're a final year student of a real subject like my friend (and superior writer) +Monique Bouffe - then I guess this is a special kind of awful time of the year. She's actually the inspiration for this post because if she can blog while revising such awful things as the Polish constitution while I sit here sipping a ginger and pineapple and vodka drink...

(It needs a name. I'll get to the name later.)

...then I should really be able to gather my thoughts to write a blog, especially when so much has happened in the last few days. Not because I've made a resolution to live a more exciting life, but because my birthday was 4 days ago and an old flame crossed the water. That's a remarkably fancy way of saying that Mary came to visit Kate and me, but I am a fancy sort of chap.

We trekked around a lot of Aberdeen and Aberdeen repaid us with the best weather it could provide: rain, a side helping of rain and torrential rain to follow, with a theme of gale force winds throughout. Never have three people been so unpleasantly wet in the pursuit of things to do and see in Aberdeen, but we came through it with the aid of home cooked meals and Canadian whisky.

Last year I bought Mary a fancy pocket-watch; she likes clocks where you can see the gears moving. She was very pleased with the gift and I was very pleased with myself, but thought nothing more of it until she rocked up with my birthday gift: a book called The Devil's Picture Books, a tome about cards that was published exactly 100 years before my birth. I now own something that is a century older than I am and I confess I think that's wicked cool.

I've also received money from relatives, which as a student is the most perfect gift to receive - it can go on anything: from heating my little flat a bit more as the winter draws to a close to meaning I have enough for a little treat from the supermarket. It's probably going to be chorizo or beer. I've also got cards adorning my mantlepiece, reminding me that I'm not quite out of mind. It's peculiar and wonderful that people I saw only two weeks ago wished me a happy birthday and still felt they had to send a card. Love them.

Cards. The one on the end is on cards because inception.

The last night was spent in the good company of the many beers provided by Six Degrees North, a Belgian-style beer bar on Littlejohn Street over by Morrison's. I have no doubt you've already been there but if you haven't go there immediately. I insist. I do. Kate took charge of the camera and went fantastically snap-leaving me free to teach Mary how to play rummy - a game at which she immediately beat me three rounds in a row. My mother would be deeply unimpressed.

She left the next day, but I managed to introduce her to a Scottish breakfast before she left. She fought bravely but it defeated her; the only thing in all the rain and gloom that had. And that is the end of this blog; my procrastination now over as I refocus on French theatre of the 16th century. I'll be doing my best to blog more.

Not a resolution. Just a promise to try.