Saturday 3rd December - Pretending to be a Journalist

So, yesterday I had another dissertation deadline. I've been silly enough to leave all most of my research and writing till the last month and a half of semester. It's mad. A 10,000 word dissertation should have a topic decided by September, with research progressing throughout, culminating in an eloquent and detailed "intellectual tantrum." Not for me though. I've had about a month to do all of that, with three or four all-nighters to get the actual dissertation done. I'm an idiot, I know. I'd like to tell you now that it's finished, but my attempt to complete my first draft of the whole thing failed. I needed to write 4,000 words for Friday. I managed most of it but it wasn't completely finished. I started on Thursday evening after watching a film (yes, I deserve every bit of exhaustion, pain and bad mark thrust upon me for procrastinating), and then finished at 3pm on Friday. It's quite a strange thing to watch it go from light to dark, to light, and then to dark again. I was getting so desperate I had to get the big guns out - Red Bull. It's disgusting but it kept me awake. So awake that my hands were shaking and I was babbling and laughing to myself like Rafiki.

If that wasn't bad enough, come Friday morning I thought it would be a good idea to embark on some journalistic adventures. I wrote an article on the Karen Armstrong lecture and sent it to a few contacts. With the recent publication of a new Theos report written by one of our own (Steve Holmes), I saw another opportunity to write a piece and get an "exclusive interview" if you can even call it that. So there I was planning what I was going to ask Steve, when I should have been writing about William of St Thierry's view of silence and whether he incorporates Evagrius of Pontus' concepts of apatheia and hesychia. I do love my life.

Student band "The OK Kids" supported Vetiver

You would think that after staying up for so long I'd rest, but no. After a two hour siesta I went out. Yes, that's right, I got up off the floor (I was so tired I just sort of fell off my chair and fell asleep) and went out into the dark night. Thanks to Music is Love I go out when I shouldn't. The band playing that evening was Vetiver. Dubbed as "American indie folk," I couldn't help but think the lead singer looked like Matt Cardle, which is a real shame. A sad reflection of the way glamourised bog-standard talent shows have brainwashed us. Anyway I really enjoyed myself. I've uploaded a video, and posted photos. What's a blog post if it doesn't include photos?

Vetiver were great. For just over an hour, I thought it was summer again