This was a triumph.

This post is unique for several (read many, many, many) reasons.
First- I am no longer, technically, an undergraduate student. Huzzah! And poignant goodbye to what has been.
Second, out of almost eighty, this is the first post in which I have succeeded in embedding a video- and that video is, indeed, plenty apt and also "cracking".
Third- it's prose heavy. I'd apologise, but it's meant to be.

Here is, from Portal (Portal 2 was released recently, buy it) the end credits "Still Alive" written by Jonathan Coulton. It sums up these two days, and these three years, and (effectively) these fifteen years of education, in my honest opinion. This has, well and truly, been a triumph.



Today has been, all in all, pretty good. To the point where there is too much to mention should I be trying to record an entire day's activity in a single Facebook status or "tweet". Everything except blogs have word limits.

So the day began with a really early morning start, in typical insomniac and scalding-shower-alertness style at just before eight. A cup of tea followed, along with much recital of quotes I would, it turns out, not need or forget in the exam.

The next stage of the day, or significant stage, was either realising how sunny and nice it was as I left the house before eleven or the reason I was leaving the house at that time- to sit in The Novel Cafe and review notes and themes etc with the esteemed and beautiful Kristina Roberts and Kat Haylock. Both of these women got me through today, no word of a lie.

Having done all that it was time for a brief trip on campus and a brief spell of about half an hour on a triangle of grass in front of the George Fox building (he was a quaker, dontcha know- I was a quakin' for my second and last final). I ate a bacon and egg sarny. It would have been a salami roll, but while I deciphered the text up close with my faulty eyes a hand, belonging to a beautiful red head, swiped the product away. I protested by way of complaint, and haven't stopped going on about it all day, including the "diary entry" post being written now (considered this evening).

Between then and the next notable event in this post some sort of exam happened... Oh, wait, it was my last exam ever. Oh well. I finished it with twenty minutes to spare and decided, after a debate, to walk out early. The reason? I'd never done so, and wanted to feel the "thrill" (that's right, Haylock, mock all you want) of it just once.

The Writers' Society hoodies arrived two days ago, and this evening we got to see and collect them from the resplendent Laura Dallison, Social Secretary. They look awesome.

Then there was the drinking, and the Writers' Society meeting. We held it outside in the brilliant sun. I read a poem, like a girly girl, which was corrected by my peers and encouraged. Ta. Then it was back to the bar.

On returning to the bar, we ran into the stoner crowd again, those who will waste their lives on substances not substance they've been part of and will probably die forty years before us. The good news? Haylock hadn't returned home, and fled them to talk to us. Cracking. After merriment, an evening spent fighting, drinking and making our fathers proud, we returned to town and home, via two places of distinction.

One- the ice-cream shop that has recently opened on campus, with every flavour under the sun including rum and raisin, which I partook in. Then, to wind up the evening, myself and a burgeoning, potential writer in the form of David "The Prospero" Helm ventured towards The Stonewell Tavern, where I had never been. In terms of what's on tap and the music they had in tonight, it's on a par with The Dalton Rooms and The Robert Gillow. And I had a free pint. And they played James Brown's "I Feel Good", which I said I was likely to break out of when in the bar after the exam.

So there we are- a day, after two or three (I'm not sure) days of rough sleep and shit cramming and worry over examinations, in which everything tied up. It all came together, it all ended, and, hey- I'm still alive.