Day 95: The 30th of October

Draw up a chair, one and all. Let me tell you a story. A story of a very foolish boy…

It was the afternoon of Friday 30th of October, and Elliott was huddled in his scarf and thick coat on the platform at Guildford station. He had arrived 5 minutes earlier and had noticed that one of the trains on the schedule had been delayed for more than 20 minutes. This didn’t bother him too much; he usually sat and read a book when he had a spare minute.

Today was different though. He leaned against the pillar set back from the platform edge and perused through the book upon his phone’s screen. For 5 minutes. For 10 minutes. For 15 minutes. Every few minutes, the train announcer would blurt out a message sending various people off of the platform to other, non-delayed trains. This didn’t bother Elliott too much, it just meant his train would be clearer when it finally arrived.

Then the announcement rang out. The trains from platform 5 were cancelled. In a mild state of concern, Elliott hurried over to the recommended platform and hopped upon the train resting there, settling in the far corner of the carriage and continuing his reading. This train would take double the time the cancelled train would have taken, but it mattered not as long as he got home.

Most of the journey was a blur. A young lady sat next to Elliott for much of it and he deliberately avoided any eye contact or possible interactions, instead staring at his phone all the more intensely. It was probably this that caused the next minor disaster of the evening: missing his stop.

Luckily, Elliott hopped off at the next stop along the line and got a train back the way he had come. From there it was a simple matter of waiting until the train home cleared, after around 3 stops, before sitting comfortably as the train emptied around him all the way back.

So, I’m finally back home, after what felt like a ridiculously long day.

It was actually short by university standards. A single 2 hour lecture is pretty easy, even if it is Public law. Now I can gather my thoughts and spend a peaceful evening sleeping in my own bed again.

Unfortunately, I am currently waxing fanciful and thinking about all the things I could do and learn. I know in my heart I will either never get the courage to do these things, or I will be too lazy or busy to do them. It doesn’t matter too much though. This music is so nice to listen to, I don’t need to make any myself!

I’m going to go to bed though. I am pretty tired and my eyelids are slowly falling down, making typing a bit of a challenge. At least Grey seems to be happy to see me!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 94: The 29th of October

Well, it’s finally done…

I submitted my coursework this evening, following many hours of deliberation and worry. At this stage I couldn’t care less how good the work is, as long as it is uploaded and I don’t need to do anything more.

I was going to spend the rest of the evening doing tutorial preparations, but since I finished up at around 9:30 PM I decided to call it quits. I shall prepare for my tutorials either tomorrow evening or on Saturday.

As for how my day was, it was pretty standard. I have been reading one of my favourite books on my phone via the Kindle app, every time I get a few spare minutes. This has really alleviated a lot of the boredom of having to wait between lectures and tutorials. The other major boredom remover is, of course, having so much work that you don’t get any time to yourself.

I hope I can at least get this tutorial work done before my birthday. It would be nice to have a weekend without work, but that is unlikely to say the least. Anyway, for now I have a bit of time to relax before I go to bed.

I had a nice meal of sausages, bacon and brie this evening, since I could not be bothered to cook anything fancy. It was one of the nicest meals I have had since I got here. Just goes to show how bad I am at cooking. That reminds me, I really need a drink before I get to bed. I shall get to that now.

I’ll see you all tomorrow evening, when I will be at home and able to write in full about my day. I wish you all the best!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 93: The 28th of October

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I am being buried under a mound of paper and words I don’t understand at the moment. I spent the past 12 hours or so studying law and I can barely tell you what I have learned in that time. This does not fill me with confidence!

I spent the past 7 hours writing my coursework that is due on Monday and I am still not done. I don’t even know if my arguments hold any water, yet alone if they actually have the relevant cases backing them up in the correct referencing format. I have to finish this work tomorrow afternoon and crank out another three tutorial preparations if I don’t want to be working all weekend.

At this stage I feel utterly swamped by it all and I cannot fathom how I’ll be ready to be examined on all of this soon enough. In our course we need to know hundreds of cases at least, plus what the cases all actually reference and prove. Not only that, but we need the titles of hundreds of statutes and acts of Parliament too.

Someone wake me from this nightmare! Land law and Public law are the worst too, they are either too focused on tiny details or too expansively wide that I can’t even understand why we are learning what we are. And I should be one of the lucky ones, I did this subject at A-Level!

Honestly, I feel awful this evening. The sheer weight of reading and work, coupled with the knowledge that complaining about it will only get a response of ‘Well that’s what studying law is’, makes me feel like I’ve been abandoned or that I am the only one facing these problems.

All this makes me feel like it’s all my fault. And it is. I should be working all day, every day, to keep up with every single case they force down our throats. Plus all the extra cases that they tell us nothing about, expecting us to do our own research on top of reading 1000 pages of essential reading every day.

I’m going to bed now. Maybe things won’t seem so bad in the morning. And, if they do, at least I can whine to my personal tutor, if I can build up the courage.

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 92: The 27th of October

Today was too long for my liking. Only a few more days before I hit age 19 though!

I spent most of the day reading in the library for my tutorials. It appears that my contract and criminal tutorials are demanding a much higher workload than my public law, which doesn’t really click in my mind yet, given that public law is the hardest of the modules.

I’m not terribly excited about doing hours of work tomorrow, but it can’t be helped. I have to write my coursework up in an afternoon and follow it up with tutorial preparations for next week. I’ll be surprised if I finish it all. I have to get it done by Thursday night though, otherwise I run the risk of having to do work on my birthday, which is a fate I would rather avoid.

As for today, I had very little human contact and my brain started wearing out into the 4th hour of reading about constitutions. It’s not that hard either, just a huge bulk of reading that needs to be done. I’m not going to talk much about it tonight.

In fact, I am going to hit the hay early tonight, given that I have to be up early again tomorrow and I was exhausted this morning. Only one lecture at 9:00 AM tomorrow, so I should be spending the rest of the day in the relative peace of this house. I’ll talk more tomorrow night since I won’t have such an early start.

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 91: The 26th of October

Today was a pretty merry day.

I love the quiet zones on trains and being able to sit and watch the countryside fly past the window in the sunshine. It really helps me relax and prepare for university, something that I don’t do when I wake up before the sun rises.

I spoke to a lot of people today at university and I actually started to relax as it seemed to go okay. I prefer talking in the tutorial format, since that essentially forces interaction and means people don’t think I am too weird! The day was helped with the knowledge that I was seeing my parents that evening for dinner.

As luck would have it, I have managed to cut down my crying time from them leaving to only a few minutes, which is nice. I don’t have that dull ache of grief I used to get even as a child when people would leave. I used to cry whenever anyone who was visiting left.

I have a lot of work this week, a fact I have been spouting at anyone who would listen for the past three days. It is nice to get it out in the open and maybe I just like the sympathy. Anyway, the great news is that I have to get up at 6:30 AM tomorrow and it is currently approaching midnight. I love my stupidity at times.

I had better head off now then, before I end up staying up even later. Three tutorials tomorrow and around 5 hours in the library of preparing for various things. Should be alright, assuming I don’t fall asleep. We will see. Catch you later.

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 90: The 25th of October

Today was a day of work. Thus, not terribly interesting.

Besides, as much as I would love to discuss various thoughts I did have today, I should probably not, given that it is already late and I have to be up for university relatively early.

What I will say is that I have been missing my family a lot and that, coupled with the extensive workload causing quite a bit of stress, has driven me almost to tears more than once already. Just goes to show how weak-willed I am.

Not to mention that I have been told by the family friend I am staying with that I need to spend more time in Guildford and make some friends, amongst other things. This annoyed me because it isn’t that easy for me. I am terrible at building up the courage to talk to somebody and I also find it impossible to keep a conversation going, considering that most of the time I am worrying about the interaction instead of actually being interesting in what the person is talking about.

It’s all well and good saying that I need to stay over on the weekends at some point, but what am I going to do? Go into Guildford, alone? It’s not like I know anyone to meet up with there, given that the only people I have really spoken to commute in from home. So I’d just be doing the same thing as I do here, except over in Farnborough. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me. Maybe if I make some friends that will change though.

I think the implication hurt me more. It’s bad enough that my grandmother worries about my lack of social skills, without someone who isn’t even related to me starting too. I know I am terrible with people and I need to make friends. I’m not an idiot. It’s just not as easy as it sounds. Maybe give me a chance to get the workload in order and to actually settle into the university life before you start telling me that I am living my life wrong.

The last thing I need is to start doubting myself just as I start to build up my confidence that I can survive in the turbulent world of university. I don’t have to be just like everyone else, I can be myself and I am fine with that. Even if that means I have very few friends.

Anyway, I had better get some sleep. I’ll speak to you all tomorrow evening, after I have finished up all my work!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 89: The 24th of October

Busy day, today.

When I say that, I mean busy for me. That means hanging around other people all day. Amusing, indeed.

I spent most of the day at my brother and his girlfriend’s flat in town, playing some games and generally doing very little. It was rather pleasant, even if I had the constant worry of the work I need to do for university shortly. It turns out that my first proper piece of coursework is due on the day after my birthday. Scary.

The evening was spent chatting with one of my oldest friends while arguing with another friend on Skype. As usual, I won’t go into details. It was the usual irrational stuff he normally complains about, with a side of backhanded insult along the lines of ‘Elliott doesn’t like it when people discuss women’. This is mainly insulting since it proves that he thinks I am envious due to not having a romantic partner. Well, that and the fact that it is a completely presumptuous statement.

Anyway, I won’t get into that now. Instead, I’ll just call it quits for the night. Toodles!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 88: The 23rd of October

Last night I basically passed out from exhaustion, so I’ll mention my day now instead. Sorry for the delay.

I did do interesting stuff yesterday too, so you are in for a treat. For starters, I got up relatively late and then spent most of the morning playing ‘Undertale’. And, at long last I got close to the end of the game. Now, when I say that I don’t actually mean the End, since that requires multiple playthroughs to achieve, but I have got to the first possible ending.

The really interesting thing about this game, and what makes it such an interesting and popular title at the moment, is its touching story and the possibilities of options for the player. The story is very unsettling at places, but at others can be pretty heart wrenching. The main two options you receive are kill or spare. Essentially, you do not have to battle any enemy in the game if you don’t want to. And be warned, since the game will remember your choices.

Unfortunately I find that it is the sort of game I have to take a reasonable amount of time off to play. I can’t just sit down and play for five minutes, unlike ‘osu!’, which is quite a nice time waster.

Anyway, after playing that for a while I went into university and listened to our first interesting public law lecture, regarding the rule of law. It was much more interesting because it wasn’t just general knowledge anymore, it is now going into specific points to do with the law.

So that finished up at 4:00 PM and gave me plenty of time to get to the station for my train home. I spent most of this time sitting in the rather nice chairs on the platform, reading a book on my phone. That was until I got a phone call.

It was one of my friends from back home, who happens to be doing some work in Guildford now. He had left work early, since his hours were finished for the week and he was rushing to the station. This filled me with relief; it really is so much nicer to have company while taking the train. So he arrived and was his usual wacky self, which made me smile despite his clear lack of train etiquette causing other passengers much grief I’m sure.

So finally we were back in my hometown and I walked off to meet my brother, brother-in-law and my sister at the local sports centre, which ended with me destroying the badminton court with my insane skills. Well, not really, but it was still pretty fun. After that Ben and Emma very kindly took me to Pizza Hut for dinner, followed by a trip to see what is possibly the best arcade game in the known world.

‘Animal Kaiser’.

My word, what a beautiful machine it was. The roaring golden lion head beckoning passersby to come and use their money on something more. We played for around 40 minutes on this machine and I received my first cards. My animal cards include ‘The Smooth Killer: Indian Gavial’ and ‘Holy Gray Wolf: Schneider’, who is a beautiful card. I also got a miracle card ‘Fissure’.

This game is essentially like a trading card game, such as Pokemon, but your creatures come to life on the screen. It is quite spectacular and I would highly recommend it.

Anyway, I had better go get ready now. I’m meant to be going out today and I need to get dressed. Have a good one, everyone!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 87: The 22nd of October

So, I didn’t do anything today. Well, barely anything at any rate.

I went into university, did my tutorial and lecture and then hurried back here. I guess I also bought my ticket to go home tomorrow. The most interesting thing I did all day was make dinner, really.

I learned a lot from making food too. I made a lot of easily fixable mistakes, as you do when you are cooking something for the first time. It just means you can improve for next time. I won’t tell you what I cooked, since I made an embarrassing mess out of it, but let’s just say that it was delicious anyway.

Other than that, I spent most of the evening playing games and chilling out. It was pretty nice, actually. I don’t have to be up tomorrow until quite late in the day, since my lecture is at 2:00 PM, but I shall endeavour to get up at around 9:00 AM.

I’m going to go now! No one say a word!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.

Day 86: The 21st of October

MAAAAAAAAAARTY! WE’VE GOT TO GO BACK! BACK… TO THE FUTURE!

It was Back to the Future day today, by which I mean that today, the 21st of October 2015, was ‘the future’. It was raining all day and I spent most of the day inside reading cases and textbooks on law. Who would have thought that the future would be so ordinary?

I do enjoy having most of the day off, after the 9:00 AM start which leaves me yawning all day. If I wasn’t sure that I would forget to do my work, I would have had a nap in the afternoon. Anyway, tomorrow I have an extra hour in bed, which may not seem like much but it makes a big difference.

I’m finally starting to relax in my new environment now. No longer do I worry and sit bolt upright at my desk all evening. Now I slouch and walk around barefoot without a care in the world. Plus, the cat seems to be finally warming up to me. She didn’t seem to mind me walking around the kitchen this evening and I stroked her for a while.

Just a Land law tutorial and a Contract law lecture tomorrow, which should be pretty good. It leaves me with an hour-long gap between 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM to sit around looking bored. My current plan is to sit outside the lecture theatre for an hour and maybe read a book on my phone or something. We will see what happens then though.

That’s all the relatively interesting things I can think to say this evening, so I’ll cut this off here. Ciao, everyone!

Elliott Rogers, novice blog writer extraordinaire.