Epiphanies are a bitch

Well, it would appear that October has proven itself to be a remarkably eventful month since it has attracted a nice 5 blog entries so far. I doubt very much that will grow to 6 in the space of a few days, however I guess you never know quite what life is going to throw at you and so it's somewhat pointless trying to predict it.

So whilst it's impossible to see what's coming ahead, it's quite easy to look back and see what has gone before. I had quite the interesting flashback to my first year of university earlier, whilst I was in Sheffield city centre, and on one hand it made me realise something about myself - a quality that perhaps I've been trying to convince myself I don't have - and I also realised something about how I'm different from that person now. The great thing about this realisation, though, is that the changes that have happened to me are quite easily reversible and are things that I'm intent on changing anyway. As anyone who knows me will attest to, I have quite (ok, very) long hair and I didn't have quite such a flowing mane when I first arrived here. I'm beginning to suspect that the sheer amount of hair I have is perhaps pidgeon-holing me into a certain "social group" that I don't entirely fit into, whilst when I first came to uni I think I could just about blag being in one of a handful of them.

I've also realised something else today, which is again part-good and part-bad. I've realised that, over the course of the past few months, I've put someone who I care very much for through a lot of stuff I shouldn't have and I can never undo this. I can't take back what I did, how I was, or the person I turned into. I made a lot of mistakes, and did things I shouldn't have done, and as was pointed out on at least one occasion any half decent boyfriend wouldn't even have thought some of what I did. The thing that is so unsettling is that, so far as I can tell, nothing has changed about the way I feel for her or how she feels for me - but because I don't always think things through, or don't take things into account that I should, I don't think anything is going to become from it any more. I'd be over the moon if it could, I truly would, but unfortunately something I'm going to have to come to terms with is that scenario being pretty much untenable. For all I've said, and all the complaining or stubborn attitude I've given out over it in the past few weeks, one of the proverbial pennies that dropped into the well of understanding the other day represented the fact that I can't act like a kid anymore on stuff like this. I shouldn't be listening to myself and the voices in my head, but perhaps to the people who're talking to me and who in most cases I still judge as being willing to be honest with me. I need to get out of my twisted and unsettled mind, and out into the real world and actually take more things on board instead of dismissing them as outright lie or deceit. I don't expect many of the people I know, or talk to on a regular basis, to deliberately or knowingly mislead or lie to me - but from the way I've been recently, I'd expect that most people would think the opposite.

I guess that's something that not a lot of people realise about me, really. For years at high school, I was a bit of an outcast - I'm sure everyone was either one of the smart kids, or knew one of the smart kids and looked down on them for it. I spent 5 years feeling like I was good for little else than recieving derisive remarks, or being used for answers to homework or for help with other stuff. Since leaving, and thanks to going to a good college and now a good university, I'm not just stuck on the fringes anymore. There's people who seem to like me, and I'm damn sure it's not to try and blag answers any more 'cause I'm sure not one of the smartest going these days. I guess perhaps I'm still not through the transition I should've made in high school, where I should've gone from the naive child I was to a slightly more world-aware person. I don't think I'm entirely used to being liked purely by merit of who or how I am, without some underlying agenda or exchange like before, and I'm even surer that I'm still not entirely used to having some of the attention I do occasionally get these days. I'm sure I don't have to be specific on that one, but that you'll figure out what I'm suggesting. I was never anywhere near the radar at high school, let alone on it.

Maybe I'll get past this point, and perhaps one day I might end up being someone who was good enough for her. It's just a shame I didn't quite get there in time...

The Things We Do

Well, it's time for another update on the blog I think, since I haven't actually finished writing anything here that I've started in a while. I have made a few attempts at putting something on here, but whenever I did I either went off on so many tangents that the entry got immensely huge or I just lost my train of thought and it went to shit that way. I suppose it's a good thing that my mind isn't quite as hectic the past few days, but then my head's never exactly clear in the first place...

The past few weeks have been interesting, and I think that in a way there's a learning experience to be had here. I did, albeit briefly, get back what I wanted all summer and then promptly went and stuffed it up in a very similar manner to the first time. I do sometimes wonder whether or not I did something immeasurably wrong in a past life, or whether there's some force at work that is making things go wrong recently. I suppose it's a bit of a relief that things have settled down a bit now, and that they're picking up a little bit. I still know ultimately what I want, on a personal level, but I really don't think I'm likely to get a third chance at it. That sucks.

On the plus side, third year is going reasonably well so far. We've already had one piece of assessed homework, and it was a little bit tricky at first but after a little bit of thinking and consulting the notes it fell into place and all was well. Another piece of homework was given out this week just gone, and it looks lovely. Nothing makes me happier than having to use the Schrödinger Equation in its radial form with spherical polar co-ordinates. Still, it's something I have to learn and I reckon it can't be that hard if I put enough effort into learning the damn thing. Bit like elementary quantum mechanics - I wasn't too fond of that, coupled with being ill and missing a few lectures, but on the back of some very basic notes and some help from a friend I managed to pass what is quite possibly the most challenging module in the second year of a physics degree here. So, all things considered, if I put the work in I hope I'll be able to do at least that well in my third year and finally leave here with a reasonable degree. Hello "real world"!

Other than that, there hasn't been much happening. I've done a fair bit of cleaning around the house, and spent a lot of time sorting out junk in my room. I bought some new textbooks from Blackwells, one mathematics and one quantum mechanics, so that I can try and improve my understanding of these subjects - mostly 'cause my maths needs work and without quantum there's no way I'll understand any physics at this level.

On that note, I bid you adieu.

Rock On Third Year!

Well it's been a while since I rambled anything on here, so I guess I should probably put down what's been going on. The past two weeks I've been quite busy keeping the new seniors at TSC quite inebriated and fulfilling my role as social secretary in addition to being the chair of the committee. I think I organised about 5 or 6 socials, in addition to a few others that were organised by the new seniors themselves. Pretty good that they all seem to get along with each other, should make working with them next year much easier.

On top of this, I got my resit results as well. Had to take 3, all exams that I didn't put that much effort into initially, so I finally decided to put some effort in and if it doesn't pay off then at least this time I did try. Well, it paid off. Passed all 3, but I don't know whether or not it was with flying colours 'cause everything is capped at just a bare pass. Whilst it's something of a relief to know that I do have a good enough grasp of everything to pass modules in such thrilling topics as quantum mechanics, it's somewhat irritating that the motivation to work has only really properly hit me now. That said, I think that if I can do well in my third year (which for me is the last year of my degree programme) I should be able to leave university with a 2.1 which is a pretty good degree. Should get me where I want to be at any rate.

I've been thinking, as well, that perhaps since one of the careers I'm considering perhaps going for is something research based (which I should be able to do with a 2.1) is having a crack at improving upon some of the notes from some of the lecture courses. I've found some notes for most of the modules offered at Sheffield, and whilst a lot of them are really pretty damn good there's quite a few that really suck. Couple this with lecturers that aren't all that brilliant and you've got a handful of students that might struggle. It'd also be quite good revision, since I'd be going over old material that's still relevant to the third year. Quite looking forward to some of the modules, as well.

The only other thing to report is that my room is considerably tidier than it has been. I can see my floor again, and all that remains now really is to vacuum it after I've got hold of some carpet cleaner stuff.

Catch ya later!

A Brief Sigh Of Relief

Well the week is almost up, and with it's passing also goes the two exams I had to pass to ensure I progress to the next year of my degree. For the first time in my history at Sheffield University, I actually put some time in on these damn things. I've also been suffering exam jitters for the first time since way back in the day when I took SATs in like year 2. I realised that, pretty much, most of the exams I'd end up taking throughout my primary and secondary school education wouldn't really amount to much. I was never this nervous about my A-Levels - and they weren't particularly bad. But then, I wonder perhaps that had I put a proportionate amount of effort into the A-level work I did most poorly on would I have gotten the same jittery feeling I got today. I suppose the fact I got the nerves, and as a result slept pretty damn badly both nights before the exams, is in part because this time I've actually worked. Perhaps it's the feeling that, despite powering through the best part of a 200-leaf Pukka Pad in order to answer assorted questions on quantum mechanics, special relativity and atomic spectra, all the work isn't going to pay off. I suppose there's always that fear that we'll try something, and we'll fail. I wonder what the percentages would read if we tallied up all the people who, upon trying and failing then went on to try again and those who went on to quit. Perhaps there's an expectation value in there somewhere, hehe.

Still, since the exams I had to work for are now gone leaving only "Topics In Classical Physics" which really doesn't appear to be necessary for anything anymore I'm kicking back with a nice cold one and listening to tunes and appreciating the fact that it's gloriously sunny outside and I'm not sneezing like a bastard. The only downside to the whole sunshine thing is the wasps and other stingy insects, but so far they don't seem to be finding me that attractive a target. Which is quite nice. I'm not usually one who drinks by himself, since I find it analogous to the miserable old git I'll inevitably become as I age going and sitting in the local every afternoon spending whatever the idea of a pension has become by the time I'm that old on bitter and the company of likewise miserable gits. That said, there's not really anything I can do about the lack of company, so I'll enjoy me drinkies regardless and put the images of lil' old me to one side for now.

Now that, essentially, the bulk of my work for getting through to third year is finished I've been contemplating a few things. Mostly I've been thinking that, perhaps it might be beneficial for me to go back over everything from the past year before September and try and get a handle on it better than I presently do. I figure that, for the pre-requisite courses anyway, this might make the work in 3rd year turn out to be a little bit easier. I think, also, that I might have finally learnt my lesson. For all my motivational problems, something got me to work for weeks on passing what was quite possibly the most confusing course I've ever taken. I sincerely hope it paid off. It would be quite ironic, and most unfortunate I suspect, for me to finally realise that I'm not a fuckwit but that I just need to apply myself only for my university career to come to an abrupt end. The lesson would still be learnt, I suppose, the application would just be different to what I imagined. The alternative is to be positive about the resits, and perhaps spend some time going over the early lectures for next year with this year's notes to hand if anything seems unfamiliar. The one thing I do know is that next year I can't afford to be so disaffected with the work. There isn't the 30% before you sit the exam safety net in the form of homework and problems classes that there was for this year. I suppose, in a sense, that doesn't affect me since I never particularly enjoyed the problems classes or tutorials - small group work generally isn't my thing, unless it's on something I'm particularly confident of my knowledge of. So far, I've spent most of my time at university finding myself intellectually inferior to others in the year - so I've been a bit shy about asking for help or anything like that.

In other news, I've bought some new shoes and that. I'll try and attach a photo of the pair I'm currently wearing, they're very comfy as I've come to expect from Vans. I s'pose I should really find a few more manufacturers that make comfy shoes for UK size 12 feet. Anywho, I dunno quite how the photos function works on here... On some other sites there's a tag you can put in to put the image in a certain place. Oh well.

That's all for this entry, I think. TTFN.

...and the dirt still stains me...

It's quite funny, a lot of what I do. I've been talking to someone on MSN for a while, and despite everything I wrote on here between 2 and 3 am this morning, I've already lost sight of so much of it. Evidently I underestimated just quite how much effort I'm going to have to put into sorting my head out.

So, I still haven't been able to accurately recall the quote I was searching for this morning. Whilst I may have found 3 other good ones, none of them seem quite so appropriate as this one particular quote is. I'm so definitely sure that it's an Albert Camus quote, or perhaps someone closely associated with Camus, since when it was originally cited to me the discussion had just mentioned him. It truly was a spectacular quote, an absolutely fantastic statement about self-pity and just how vile an emotion it is. It sums up pretty much everything about my current situation perfectly, far better than I ever could.

I'm also finding more and more often that, despite having a lot of it, I'm not enjoying listening to the music I've grown so fond of any more. Whether that has anything to do with the fact that, at the moment, I'm feeling very apathetic about a lot of things I don't know. A lot of the music I have sat in the library of iTunes doesn't really do much to make me feel any better. The odd track of stuff like MGMT and Keane I have here, though, with the "lighter" music for want of a better description seems to do much more for my mood than such metallic glory as Metallica or Dragonforce.

Which brings me on to the topic that seems to be underpinning pretty much everything I'm thinking about right now, and mostly what is behind a lot of what I write on here. The issue of who, exactly, I am. Who is this person, sat at a computer screen talking about the issues in his life? What do I like, where am I going in life, what do I want from it? Genuinely, I can't answer some of those questions. I came to university with no absolute direction, I still don't really have one. Partially I think this is because of the issues I'm still trying to solve; that I don't think I'm capable of any significant original contribution to the field I'm studying, or that I'm not worth anything as a scientist (or a person for that matter). Yet, at the same time, I don't know entirely what a physics degree - should I get one - would really allow me to go on and do.

So, I got to thinking about why I actually came to university. What helped, was that I found the personal statement I wrote for my application to UCAS. I think I very much lost sight of why I came here, I got too bogged down in everthing that coming to university exposed me to. Before coming here, I was very much a closed off person. I had a small group of friends, and by that I mean I knew a few people well enough to not feel uncomfortable around them and whom I felt I could talk to about things. Then I came to Sheffield. I was no longer surrounded by familiar faces, or by situations I could easily escape from. To be fair, I think I owe quite a debt of gratitude to some of the people I first met at university. Some of the first people I ever spoke to, and some of the first friends I made here, were international students. People who'd not just left their hometown, but had come to an entirely different country to get a degree. And, in all honesty, if I had to make a claim as to who I thought were friendlier - the internationals or the home students - I'd go with the internationals any day. I'm still good friends with a few of them, they're fantastic people. Whereas some of the home students I've met did nothing but remind me of what I thought I'd left behind once I left college. It's remarkable that, no matter what level of education you're in, there's still arseholes. My high school had a lot of them, and college had surprisingly more than I anticipated. I never thought so many people whose life seemed to involve nothing but drink, drugs and sex would've gone to college. Yet, perhaps that just shows how naive I was about the world, 'cause university students seem to predominantly be the people I tried to avoid. Ask anyone what they think students do, and their answer will probably be some combination of drink, drugs and sex.

I've digressed somewhat, and I'm not accurately representing in my statement the people I've made friends with at university. Granted, some of the people I know at university do seem to do very little except go out, get drunk/high/laid or any combination of them at once. But then, I know people who don't. The people who, for all intents and purposes, I suppose I could refer to as an island of morality. And I think I'm lucky, in some respects, that I have friends who fall under both categories. I know people who I can go out with, and have a laugh with - and no, before you go there I don't do drugs. Yet, when I need a quiet cuppa and someone to talk to, I know I've got friends for that too. I don't think I've quite yet shifted my opinion on drugs, to be honest. When I came to uni, I abhorred them - and, to some extent, I abhorred the people who took them. I pitied them, for being so callous as to risk throwing their life away just so they could go get high in a club toilet. Perhaps at some point, I might write another entry so I can try and make sense of my attitude towards drugs. I think if I ever do, it's probably going to have somewhere at the top a warning that it's probably not suitable for most people to read.

Part of what got me so confused, though, is that coming to university challenged so much of what I thought - and, as such, challenged how I was as a person. I came to Sheffield with all the opinions, thoughts and views that made me who I was. Perhaps, the fact that they were so wrong shows I was naive and stupid. Perhaps that goes to show they were never my opinions to begin with. As the Albert Camus quote said in my previous entry, we can't be happy with ourselves if all we're concerned about is the happiness of others. When I look back, I find many an occasion where I've not actually gone along with how I felt, but I've instead gone with another opinion. I don't know why. I don't, right now, feel that much compulsion to be another sheep in the herd. And yet I'm not happy with myself. I'm not happy because, ever since high school, I've seen everything go well for people who were nothing like me. The people who, instead of giving a damn about their education and their health went out and purposefully did the opposite. For years, all I saw was a society where individualism was to be discouraged. Where being something other than the type of person peddled by the popular media was a flaw, a mistake on your part.

So now I've been here for three years, and I've managed to wrangle with a few of my flawed opinions. I'm no longer so mindlessly anti-drugs. I don't see the point in criminalising some of them - and when I say this, I predominantly mean cannabis. That's another thing for another time. I won't ever willfully take the majority of illegal stuff - you'll never find me with a needle full of heroin, or snorting coke - but I'm not so blind as to immediately and blindly jump to the defence of the government and start spouting that they're all illegal for a reason any more.

To be fair, I think a lot of what I need to try and do is sort out what it is that I think. I need to spend more time saying damn it all to hell when it comes to other people's opinions and make up my own. I don't think that entirely failing to care for other people's thoughts when it comes to me would ever be productive - if anything I think not caring at all could swing me right to the other end of the spectrum - but perhaps I need to find a middle ground between caring what others think of me and caring what I think about myself.

I've gone all over the place in this entry, partially because I think there's so much floating around in my head that it's hard to think of one thing without invariably wandering into another topic. But, I hope that one day I'll be able to write an entry knowing more about who I am. That the day will eventually come where I can sit here, read back through these and feel content in the knowledge that I'm not this person any more. This sham facade of what I think others wanted me to be. Instead, I hope eventually I'll be what I want to be... and hopefully that person won't be hated by others.

...singing lager, lager, lager...

Well, another year is almost up. The contract for the house is up on the 30th, university's been out for a few weeks now, and I'm still making the same mistakes I always do day in day out.

It's quite sad, and yet slightly amusing, that so many of the people I've gotten to know over the past three years aren't going to be around next year. To be fair, my sticking around next year is heavily contingent on my being able to pass a resit in quantum mechanics and I'm not particularly liking my chances there. A lot of the people I've gotten to know, a handful of them quite well I should say, have all successfully finished their degrees and from what I've seen so far on Facebook a lot of them have done exceedingly well.

Looking back, I find a few things in the past year that I regret. For instance, I do quite regret not making more of an effort with quantum mechanics and classical physics last semester. As much as I find it amusing that we have to take a 10 credit module in obsolete physics, alongside a module on theory that pretty much underpins everything in the modern world, I do wish I hadn't been quite so un-motivated about it. Sure, I didn't particularly like the prospect of quantum since I'm a substandard mathematician but I could've at least tried harder. Same for classical. I regret more than that, for this year at least, but I can't change any of it.

Yet, I don't think I should entirely just turn around and concentrate on everything that went wrong this year. Granted, stuff did go wrong, but thinking about it a lot of stuff also went right. For instance, I passed the majority of the first semester. If I get my sorry arse in gear, and get a pass for the two modules I failed, I can pull my grade up some. The modules I passed were predominantly good grades, and I'm fairly confident that most of the second semester exams went fairly well too, despite the fact that I complained a lot about having to revise - much to a certain someone's annoyance. I made some new friends this year, and to an extent I do owe that to one particular friend of mine pretty much forcing me to talk to people. It's a bit sad that, despite having been going to lectures with them for two years now, I only know 6 or 7 people from the year. I guess that's something I need to work on: confidence. Not just in terms of having the balls to go up to someone and say hi, or having the strength of mind to change the way I think (that's a whole other blog entry right there, trust me) but to improve my confidence with maths and physics as well.

I guess it's funny that, for everything I look back on and see as a negative, the same occurance has usually spawned with it at least one positive thing. Even the fact that I'm behind a year, something I regret every morning when I wake up, isn't that bad. I've met some awesome people in this year, some more so than others, and I've learnt a few things about myself. Acting on this new knowledge, however, is going to prove the tricky part. There's still a lot that I need to even figure out, a lot of stuff that I still don't fully understand, and I think that until I'm sure I know how I feel and what's going through my head I'm not going to be able to completely fix things - or to improve myself as a person. Thankfully I've got a few months in which to do this, without a lot of the hassle of constant work and stress. I can take my stress out on zombies, though, since I still haven't completed RE4...

One thing I do know, though, is that I'm a considerably lucky man. Not only to be at the university here in Sheffield, to be given the opportunity to study here - as bad as I may be at it - but lucky that I've met the people that I have. Lucky that, despite the fact that I've been an immensely terrible person to them at times, they've still got the patience to put up with me. They're still my friends, and they're still willing to help me should I ever overcome one of my greatest flaws and ask for it.

I spent some time looking for a particular quote that, on occasion when I sit and think about what I think about my life, reminds me that I should never be quite so negative. But, unfortunately, I can't remember who the quote is attributed to and thus it lives solely in a file I don't have with me. So, I went and found another quote or two which I think should be inspiring enough for now.

"Self-respect is to the soul as oxygen is to the body. Deprive a person of oxygen, and you kill his body; deprive him of self-respect and you kill his spirit." - Thomas S Szasz.

"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others." - Albert Camus

"Laugh at yourself and at life. Not in the spirit of derision or whining self-pity, but as a remedy, a miracle drug, that will ease your pain, cure your depression, and help you to put in perspective that seemingly terrible defeat and worry with laughter at your predicaments, thus freeing your mind to think clearly towards the solution that is certain to come. Never take yourself too seriously." - Og Mandino

I think the third one is the most appropriate. I also wonder exactly what would happen if any of my friends ever followed the link from Facebook to this blog...