agirlnotahero

10:48 pm: The wonderful thing about Tigger
Well, a most pleasing X Factor result: Olly, Stacey and Joe!! Like, the best three people ever to be on the show apart from JLS, obviously. So glad. I never thought Olly would beat Danyl because Danyl's the better singer, but I never really got Danyl so I'm glad he's gone. I was really scared for just a moment that it would be Stacey who went - but how could it be? She and Joe have never been in the bottom two, they're clearly the most popular pair. I have no idea which of them I want to win! I can't call it. Either one and I'll be happy.
Had a fairly productive day since I spent about five hours in the library making notes from journals. Also have written nearly a side about depression now. Unfortunately a couple of the journals I wanted weren't in the library so I still need to look them up on the internet. Also I still have no idea which articles I want to look at for PTSD. Humm, I really need to get a move on with that. However, still not panicking, it's totally doable. Probably would have got a slight bit more work done today but Christopher came to join me in the library (I invited him though) and he's all cute and stuff, so he distracted me.
Also I didn't do any more work since getting back from the library since I watched the X Factor from last night and the results. I'd like to thank ITV Player for playing the same six adverts in every single advert break. Unfortunately I still don't want to buy Now 74, it's just that shit.
I have written up the notes from the last Clinical lecture though, well I tried to but the PowerPoint on WebCT was so different from the one we saw in the lecture that it didn't help much, so I sent a further entreaty by email to Huw begging him to update the slides, since they all seem to be very old. Also asked him to put up the slides from the sleep practical since that was very interesting. I know, "sleep practical" sounds like we ought to get to go to sleep while they monitor our brainwaves, but unfortunately it was nothing in that vein. I don't really know what the Exeter definition of "practical" is - it seems to be "lecture in a slightly different and more shit room".
I WILL get up early tomorrow and write more of my essay. I must. Otherwise I will die. Well, not die, but be a very bad person, and that's also fairly glum.

Food:
10.30am; advent calendar chocolate (three wise men), three slices of white toast, buttered with strawberry jam; 1pm: bagel with Philadelphia and ham; 4.30pm: Wispa bar; 9.15pm: rice and sweetcorn with chicken, onion and tomato, slice of treacle tart with toffee ice cream (and I didn't overheat the tart this time so the treacle was all warm and gooey instead of blackened and crispy like last time).

Here's to six months of journal posting! Cheers xxx

12:01 am: Busy busy bee, buzz
If Santa Claus is coming to town, he better be good with his elbows, because Exeter High Street is MENTAL come Christmas. Definitely going to try to avoid it as much as possible next Saturday and just do shopping on Wednesdays or maybe Sunday. I suppose it just doesn't feel like so close to Christmas because it's still a while until the end of term, but it really is not that long, only three weeks. Everyone probably had the same though as me, which was "shiiiit it's not that long until Christmas and I have no presents for anyone, better get a move on". There were some shops where you literally could not move. Anyway I got presents for Lucy O and Ellie today (still don't know what my theme is supposed to be for the Wally Secret Santa or if I'm even going to get one, so not sure whether to buy presents or not yet for the people who are doing it). And I managed to find a purple cardigan for my mummy, finally! So she will be happy because that's what she asked for.
Oh also I got presents for Seline but I won't say what those are =)
Got up very very late today due to desiring to be able to sleep in at the weekend. So I didn't do any work on the essay before I went into town but actually it didn't come off too badly I don't think, since I made loads of notes when I got back and did a more thorough essay plan to try to order all the cases I'm using. And I have about ten more cases I need to look up, but five I'm going to look up in the library tomorrow since I couldn't find anywhere on the internet where I didn't have to pay for them. And a couple more are already on my computer, I just couldn't be bothered to read them once it got to like 8 and I'd been working since 3... and then I just need to find two or three on PTSD and that'll be all the cases. Then I actually have to write the thing though, fuck.
I can do this. I have planned my time well enough to be able to do this. No panic, not just yet.
Haven't yet watched the X Factor because it wasn't up yet when I looked and I couldn't be bothered to wait 15 minutes so I watched Friends and then Russell Howard's Good News. Man that shit is hilarious. And it's a bit late now so I'll have to wait until tomorrow, or whenever, depending on how much work I get done tomorrow. Eep.

Food:
11.30pm: advent calendar chocolate (reindeer); 12 noon: apple, Vanilla Choco Balls Crunch Corner; 4.30pm: 2 scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, mug of hot chocolate; 9.15pm: 4x fish fingers and beans, 2x mince pies with cream

Oh dear, lots of cream. Purr.
Night night xxx

10:56 pm: Got the urge
Ohhh my goddd so bored. Spent several hours making notes for the essay and have made a considerable dent in them: I've got enough articles for social anxiety and panic disorder, read nearly all the ones for OCD, haven't got any for PTSD but can get them from the article we have to read for our Clinical tutorial; got one more I want to look up for depression in the library; haven't read any of the eating disorder ones yet but I've got quite a few. Need to try to find meta-analyses for depression and EDs though since I think those are really the ones they want us to look at (as they summarise results from a lot of studies at once). Also I have a couple for anxiety so it would be incongruous not to have them for the others, as if I'd just searched "cognitive behaviour therapy" in online journal sites and picked the ones with the best-sounding titles. Would I do that?
Not sure how it's going to turn out atm since I haven't started writing anything - I could have way too much or way too little and I have no way to tell right now. Hopefully I'll have enough and not have to look at addiction as well since I couldn't find ANY good articles on that. I plan to include a little blurb in my introduction or conclusion highlighting that CBT has also been shown to be effective for other MHPs such as substance misuse/dependence and whatever else it is we've covered so far in Clinical.
Had my last Stats tutorial of the term, and talked to Cat (who is Emily Girl). She claims to be shocking at Maths but actually is just one of those who can do it but often makes silly mistakes. Not like many of the other people - that girl who I was trying to help in the last tutorial was there again today, and all I could hear every five seconds was her voice saying to her neighbour "sorry, so how did you get this..?" Oy vey. Me and Cat had got the correlation question wrong because we'd done Pearson's indtead of Spearman's but then we did it again and got it right. And I got all the other questions right too, so I'm pretty happy with that.
Trying to reckon on the format of this exam; we have to answer five questions in two hours, but I'm assuming at least one of the questions must be correlation since it's quite hard calculation to follow and the easiest to make a mistake in because there's so many steps. But also I figure there will be an unrelated samples t-test, since that incorporates a variance test (or could end up being a Wilcoxon Rank Sum I suppose). Then which ever we didn't use in that question, there'll be a question on that (so if we used t-test, there'll be either of the Wilcoxons, if we used Wilcoxon, there'll be a related samples t-test). Then there must be a chi-squared test, and that pretty much just leaves z-test for the last question. Of course this is all just speculation, but it's highly logical.
The number of lectures I still need to write up from RM is steadily increasing, there's now three, except this third one is even worse, because I didn't have a working black biro in the lecture so I had to write everything further forwards in the book in pencil and will have to copy it all back when I write it up. Fortunately RM is kind of enjoyable in a really anal way. It's all like, check this, check that, your results aren't valid, your experiment is subject to maturity effects, you can't make that kind of generalisation. Basically it's everyone shouting at each other because none of us can really prove any of the things we're studying anyway.
Finally did my washing today so my room smells of lovely clean laundry smell, yay.

Food:
10.30am: advent calendar chocolate (Santa boots) bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, semi-skimmed milk; 4pm: cheddar cheese sandwich, packet of plain Pombears, 2 glasses of apple juice; 7.45pm: sausages, chips and baked beans, tin of peach slices

Bai bai xxx

10:59 pm: The rain it raineth
So, well things are looking much better. Asked James (Westlake, lives upstairs, does Physics) if I might be able to live with him and his flatmates next year and he said that should be cool. And Jack said since there are like 9 of him and his friends who want to live together they will have to split into two houses and so they might be able to have me and Steve. So I should have somewhere to live that isn't with total randomers, hopefully.
Also I got my essay back and I got 73 (%) which is the lower level of "excellent", which is the lowest level of First Class. So it's a very low First, but a First nonetheless, which is much more than I was expecting or even hoping for in my first ever psychology essay. Well, you know, I was obviously hoping for a First, but not really realistically. I would've been good with a 2:1.
However there was an excessive amount of rain today and in fact hail, so much that it got into my shoes and I could feel my toes going numb and preparing to drop off. Me and Steve were all miserable about the housing situation and essays and rain, and my umbrella was broken (but I fixed it in the end) so I was swearing loads, and Steve said "I love it when you get angry, you're so hilarious", which was kind of funny and semi-nice I suppose.
Also aside from nearly getting frostbite it probably didn't help my cold, which I got at the weekend probably from travelling, and which will now probably persist over the whole of Christmas putting a dismal shroud over the jolly proceedings. I hate colds.
Finally have some change so I can do my washing tomorrow.
Forgot to say yesterday because I was so glum, but I got an amazing JLS shirt yesterday. It's white and got silhouettes of the four guys each in "their" colour. It's awesome.
Made a few more notes for my essay. As long as I do quite a bit of work for it over the weekend it should be fine. Really don't want to be up at 4 doing it like last time. Although I probably would have got it done by about 2 if I hadn't lost Hugs and spent so much time hugging Christopher.
Oh btw I didn't get into the University Challenge team, but what ho.
Time for sleep soon I do believe.

Food:
9am: advent calendar chocolate (stocking); 9.30am: bowl of Raisin Wheats, semi-skimmed milk; 12.30pm: Milk Chocolate Digestive Crunch Corner, apple; 4pm: plain Aero; 8pm: ham and cheese (cheddar) omelette, salad (lettuce, tomato, mayo), 2x mince pies with double cream

Adios xxx

11:28 pm: Fuck fuckity fuck
So well I did no essay today. And I have no one to live with next year. Super dooper.
Was up late last night readin so I didn't get up as early as I wanted and so I didn't get to do my laundry. I will HAVE to do it tomorrow though as it is becoming vital. Also didn't have that much time to do anything else since I was doing an experiment at 11 and had to get ready for that. It was some random experiment to do with stress experienced by witnesses to crimes who have to identify the criminal. They put these little sensors on my fingers to measure my pulse and sweat, and then I looked at some little clips of men's faces and had to say a percentage of how likely I thought it was that they were the prime suspect of a crime. And then I got chocolate at the end.
Hung around in WSL since that experiment finished at 11.30 and I had a talk at 12 so there was no point going home, as by the time I got there I'd have to come back. I think this was my last Careers talk but I'm not sure, I'll have to check. It was about finding internships and work experience. Another daunting prospect. At what point in life did there stop being things to look forward to? Everything in future seems to just be long hard slog, which we're only doing to get one step further ahead, not because it makes us happy. I just want to be happy in my future.
Went to this other talk thing afterwards from the Eco Power Rangers, who were just trying to see what we're doing to be energy efficient and combat climate change and trying to help us think about what we could do to get other people to do the same. So I say unto ye, switch off lights when you leave the room, and only boil the kettle with as much water as you need. It was kind of fun and random and we got free tshirts. And there's a picture of Christopher now in his tshirt switching off a light on Facebook (they have these competitions where you can win Ben & Jerry's vouchers or other cool stuff if you post pictures of yourself being eco-friendly).
Had the afternoon in town with Christopher, we looked round some clothes shops and went into the big New Look which I hadn't been into yet (there's a big New Look and a small New Look you see. The big one is huuuge, a bit like the one in Bluewater). Anyway I got some crazy cool shoe boots, well they are boots, ankle boots, but the side panels are made of like lacy stuff so they're not completely leather (or fake leather). So it seems weird to call them boots.
Got some mince pies in the shopping and a pack on ten scones because they were 35p. And I got milk, to replace my poor stolen milk (I'm not sure if I said about this actually - basically after my weekend at home I noticed on Monday that a near-full two pint carton of milk I'd had in the fridge was gone. And the carton wasn't in the recycling, or near the other empty milk bottles strewn on the side by Jeannie and Charlotte. So either someone drank two pints of my milk, or they threw it away. And either of those is a crap thing to do).
Anyhoo was all set up for a nice relaxing evening watching a bit of Friends, and then Steve tells me that Charly and Charlie have backed out on him for living together next year as they want an all girls house. And since I was going to tag along, neither of us have anywhere to live now. He might be able to live with some other guys but I still wouldn't have anywhere, and he said he wouldn't leave me on my own with nowhere to live, which is really lovely. So now we're both a bit freaked out and we don't really know what we're going to do.
Getting my other essay back tomorrow. Fuck.
Also I have one of those really small stingy spots right under my nose, and it really hurts.

Food:
10.30am: advent calendar chocolate (holly); three slices of white toast, buttered with marmalade; 1pm: funsize Mars bar; 1.15pm: piece of baguette with cheese, tomato and cucumber, some crisp fragments; 5.30pm: glass of apple juice; 7.30pm: cinnamon and raisin bagel; 8pm: vegetable pizza, slice of treacle tart with toffee ice cream, glass of apple juice

I love Christopher, he is the only one who really knows me.
xxx

11:25 pm: Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
Well despite getting up a bit later than I intended I've had a very productive day. I started writing my essay this morning, just the introduction about what CBT actually involves. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away and have 713 words on that and the limit is 2000, so I'll have to cut that section down A LOT. Still at least I will have something... not that explaining what CBT is answers any part of the question however.
Other than the essay I've been working for most of the day really and caught up on loads of notes; I'm now fully caught up on Clinical, Statistics, and Biology, including today's lecture. The only notes I have to catch up on now are the past two Research Methods ones. Other than that, it's essay essay essay baby! Good because I can do the RM ones on Thursday night or Friday morning which gives me the whole of Wedensday and Thursday to do essay. Apart from I have loads to do on Wednesday, and have lectures on Thursday. But it'll work out.
Also spent about an hour or two today just trawling the internet for articles on CBT and I think I should now have enough on depression, anxiety and eating disorders (I haven't actually read any of them yet though, so that's only providing that they're useful). I haven't found any articles on CBT for substance misuse yet but I'm sure there are some around. Crossed fingers I can actually do this essay and make it good. We should be getting our Biology essays back this Thursday, so hopefully that will give me some ideas of what I might need to improve (without completely disheartening me of course).
Also did the two Stats problems from last week's lecture and the problems I need to do for the next tutorial (which I thought I'd done about two weeks ago, but then Longmore went and changed which ones he wanted to do. Never say there isn't a downside to doing work well in advance. The new problems included one on correlation which we aren't actually going to learn about until later this week, but we did correlation in S1 and the steps for doing the calculation are all in the handbook anyway, so I just did it to get it out of the way. Was interrupted by a fire alarm but fortunately we didn't have to stand outside for too long. I did get a bit scared because I couldn't find my keys and so left the flat without them, but then I couldn't find any of my flatmates outside so I was scared that I wouldn't be able to get back into my flat. Fortunately Laura was there though, so it was fine.
Only one more Biology lecture!! Then in the last week there is a revision one (ie. doss). It's funny how the end of term is so close now but still seems quite far away. It's all at odds because the essay deadline will come around too quickly but going home will come around too slowly, even though they're only a week apart.
Happy Birthday Hannah, who's so far away in Lesotho and who I miss lots and lots.

Food:
11am: advent calendar chocolate (donkey), apple, two milk chocolate digestives; 1.30pm: cinnamon and raisin bagel, Vanilla Choco Balls Crunch Corner; 4pm: three little slices of walnut cake (made a cup of tea but then forgot to drink it; heated it up and then forgot to drink it again. Fail); 8pm: massive plate of macaroni (thought I'd finish off the packet but it was actually a bit too much, oops) with chicken, ham, peas, sweetcorn and grated cheddar cheese; 9.30pm: slice of treacle tart

01:18 am: Bit worried about this essay now
Arr I've got so much updating to do from my lovely weekend of homeliness. Posting seemed like it would take up too much of my wonderful free time at home with my family to do it over the weekend, but I guess I should do it now.

( Long weekend )

Sooooo today thanks to our late night Christopher didn't go to his nine o'clock lecture AGAIN and we didn't get up until about half twelve. Also I missed an appointment for some research at 1 which I'd completely forgotten about, but I booked myself in for a new slot on Wednesday so hopefully they won't mind too much and I can go and do it anyway.
Had a fun Clinical lecture in which we talked about autism and Asperger's. Haven't really seen the boys in ages although I glimpsed them in the lecture as they sat a few rows in front of me (!). Steve said sorry he didn't see me after the lecture but he had to rush off for some research participation (that reading/eye movement one which I did ages ago). We've semi-agreed that we will live together next year, with Charly and Charlie since they both want to live with him (who are both girls, I think, but I haven't met Charlie as far as I know).
Been writing up notes for most of the evening as I'm really behind on them. I'm now caught up on Clinical but still need to do the second Hearing lecture for Biological before tomorrow, and the past two Stats and Research Methods lectures too. How did I get so behind on this? Lost a bit of time because Chris rang me and said he couldn't find his power cable for his computer, and I couldn't see it in my room, so I went up to Harrison to look for it but it wasn't there either.
Sad things: Jamie has had his bike stolen; a near-full two-pint carton of milk that I had in the fridge has either been drunk or thrown away by one of my flatmates; I've lost the receipt for my last shopping trip which is annoying because I'm meant to photocopy them and attach them to the questionnaire I'm doing for research. Maybe I will find it somewhere over the next three weeks.
Must be time for sleep now, up early to do the notes for Hearing II and hopefully a bit of essay notes since I have to give back those library books on Thursday. Craaaap where does the time go?

Food:
1pm: plain bagel with Philadelphia cheese; 4pm: mug of hot Ribena, Wispa bar; 8.30pm: glass of Dr Pepper, two milk chocolate digestives; 9pm: breaded fish fillet with potatoes and salad (lettuce leaves, half tomato, mayo)

Night all xxx

12:59 am: Can't find a cardigan for my mummy =(
I definitely should always get up early, it makes me feel so much better. Or maybe it was the getting up early and washing my hair, because washing my hair always makes me feel better too. So I felt supoer-dooper better this morning, I suppose.
Had our second Clinical tutorial, quite interesting actually, about the brain and stress. Had fun times trying to remember what I learnt about the fight or flight system in GCSE Biology, and also actually learnt some stuff too which is of course muchly useful. Don't really understand Clinical tutorials because tutorials are meant to consolidate knowledge from lectures but in Clinical tutorials we just talk about new random stuff.
No time for essay today nor really any time to catch up on the MOUNTAIN of lecture notes I have to catch up on. Had to write up my tutorial before I forgot what we said and then had a Stats lecture, and then Christopher came over in between my Stats lecture and my Clinical lecture, and then I had to go to town, and then once I got back from town I had to go to Christopher's for dinner and table tennis. I really wish I didn't have this stupid experiment tomorrow, it would save me two damn hours.
Stats lecture was sooo dull I almost went to sleep, but for the fact that I was near the front and Longmore would be devastated. I really write nothing down in Stats anymore, there's just no point because it's all on the slides and repeated over and over again anyway. I feel sorry for Longmore who probably knows all this stuff inside-out, upside-down and back-to-front but still has to repeat how to calculate the mean three or four times a lecture.
Clinical was also not particularly top-drawer, it over-ran and I hate it when that happens because then the lecturer rushes and doesn't really get to explain everything. Also I'm getting kind of annoyed with Huw because he doesn't update the lecture slides on WebCT, so the ones on there aren't the same as the ones we see in the lectures. So you think "hey that slide was interesting, loads of writing though so I'll have to write some of it down later" and then boom, you can't.
Had a bit of a spree in town today and bought lots of things in H&M - but I realised when I got in just now and tried on the black cardigan that I didn't try on in the shop that it's actually exactly the same as the purple one I got nearer the beginning of term, just in black. So now I'm not sure whether to keep it or not. I'll ask my mummy and Christopher what they think. Also got a nice light grey jumper and a cool white and purple stripey top. I like the H&M changing rooms because they have angled mirrors so you can see yourself from behind. And my hair looked buff.
Also got loads of shopping but it somehow came to under £20 so that's quite wonderful (and I used the self checkout all by myself!) I fear I may be messing up this dude's shopping study though because I said I was going to buy treats and though I would spend about £25, but even with my treats it only came to £18 something. I do now have a slight problem though because all my treats don't fit in my treat biscuit tin, so my digestives are now out on their lonesome. Oh and apprently Charlotte and Laura did an inventory of all the food in the fridge today so we can know if anything goes missing. We're worried we might have a sleep eater. I do hope it's not me.
Had dinner at Christopher's before we went up for one-on-one table tennis, it's very lovely to go over there for dinner. Matt Bishop be craaazy. We did have to walk up Cardiac Hill though because it's the quickest way to the Sports Centre, ugh. But I WON A GAME!! And it was like 11-5 as well so I won it by lots. It was only the one though, Chris won like 5.
Packed up most of my stuff for tomorrow now, apart from overnight stuff and books I need for tomorrow. Going home for two nights this time! It's gonna be wicked.

Food:
9.30am: bowl of Coco Pops with semi-skimmed milk; 11am: apple; 12.30pm: Milk Chocolate Digestive Crunch Corner, packet of Plain Pombears; 4.30pm: KitKat Chunky, Twix Xtra; 8.30pm: fish and chips with baked beans, yummy, thank you Christopher.

Now it's very late, thanks to the fact that I couldn't get in for about 20 minutes after I got back from TT because the fire bell was going off, and James is trying to persuade me to go upstairs and watch Family Guy with him. But no no, time is now for sleep. Night xxx

PS- just got sooo scared because I felt a really hard lump in my torso. Then found it was my ribcage. Fail.

12:41 am: What a day
Weeelll the reason for no posting last night was simply that Christopher stayed over, so this was yesterday (tried to do a cut but it's not working, idk why).

Was feeling a bit rough when I woke up so I sort of dozed for a while and was thinking about some things; then I went back to sleep again and I didn't wake up until about 12. I couldn't face working yet even though I'd meant to get up to do some stuff for my essay so I started doing thr hard Su Doku from Exepose, until about 1 when I went for lunch. Lunch was interrupted because Laura burnt the toast AGAIN (you'd think after the dozenth time she'd have learnt how to use the grill) and so the fire bell went off and we had to go outside. And my lunch by then was cold so I had to reheat it. Managed to finish the Su Doku by doing that horrible thing where you write down all the numbers that could go in the box and then do process of elimination (it's not a real Su Doku if you have to guess or write anything else down other than the number that goes in the box).
Had our last Perception lecture with Longmore! Sad times. It was sweet because at the end he said this was the last lecture and everyone went "awwww" and then he said, but he'd be back for the revision session and everyone went "yaaay". And then once he'd finished talking about the exam and so on and dismissed us everyone clapped. And we never clap our lecturers. I think he was a bit chuffed. We'll have him for the practical too, and some lucky devils will get him for a tutorial too. Also, I hope I never go deaf and have to have a cochlea implant because voices with those things sound like an army of Cybermen speaking to you.
After a nice shower I looked up some more articles for my essay when I got back and pissed about on the intertubes until Christopher came over. We were supposed to be going to a PsySoc-XEng social but then we decided we couldn't be bothered so we just stayed in, and Christopher had a sleep while I replied to some emails (I finally got a reply from Mrs Stephens! Yay!) and then we went to the Ram, and got a bit wet because my umbrella's not really big enough for two people and also doesn't really work in the wind.
Apparently the word "broiling" is American for "grilling"?? Sorry but that's ridiculous. Grilling is grilling. Broiling sounds like some ridiculously hard thing that you would do to make suet or something. While we're on this, is grilled cheese American for cheese on toast? Because it sounds more like, y'know, just some cheese that was shoved under the grill. Very odd business.

Food:
1pm: two slices of eggy bread (white bread, using two eggs); 4pm: six-square bar of Dairy Milk; 7.30pm: half a cheese and tomato pizza, glass of pineapple juice, one Go Ahead Apple and Raisin cracker; 11pm: pint of lemonade, 20p of Tooty Frooties.


So Christopher staying over was also the reason for me getting up at 25 to 12 today. He was meant to have a lecture at 10 and then I would have got up, but he didn't go (I think I ought to ban him from staying over on school nights...) Lucky we did wake up then though since I had a talk to go to at 12 and hadn't reset the alarm from half nine. Managed to get there in time though. It was another of these talks that contributes to the Exeter Award so I have to get there for the start so they can scan my UniCard to say I've attended. The talk today was about tips and techniques for interviews, quite helpful again but, again, really scary.
I didn't get time for lunch because I then had to rush off for an experiment. It was a fun EEG thing where I had to be fitted with a special cap with all these electrodes on it and the woman doing it had to put all this conducting gel on my scalp, so my hair is super-dooper icky at the moment since I haven't washed it yet. Then they monitored my brainwaves while I did this task; the task involved me looking at some words in coloured letters on the screen, and depending on the cue that was given just before the word I had to press a key to say whether it was a word or non-word or whether the colouring of the letters of the word was symmetrical or non-symmetrical. And I got 14 bonus points which means I get at least £2.80. So might get £5.60 if I do the same next time. Also I got to see a picture of my brain wave trace which was kind of cool. Like, when I said stuff the line would go wooohoo and go all spiky.
Had to hang around still longer in WSL after that experiment because I was doing another one at 3.30, kind of crazy but I'm up to 9.75 credits now. This one was really weird. We were in a big group divided into two smaller groups, set up in two rows of chairs so we were back to back with each other. Then we were given a sheet of instructions for one of two games - the Equal Game or the Unequal Game. In both games you and your opponent (whose identity you did not know) had to decide for each round how long you wanted that round to be, from 0s to 5s. You won 10p per second the round lasted, but there was a catch. If one of you chose a shorter time than the other, the one who chose the shorter time would win a 60p bonus (if you chose the same time you each got a 30p bonus). So say I chose 3s and my opponent chose 5s, they would get 30p and I would get 90p. In addition to this, you could take money away from your opponent. In the Unequal Game, anyone who was player A could spend 10p to take 100p from player B, and player B could spend 10p to take 10p from player A; in the Equal Game, both players could spend 10p to take 100p from the opponent. But you never got to see what your opponent was going until after you'd done it too - so while we were choosing the duration of the round, they did that at the same time, then they swapped the sheets over so we could all see what our opponent chose and decide whether to take any money away from them, and then they swapped back so we could see whether we'd had any money taken away. And we get to keep any money that we made but they hadn't worked it all out yet so I don't know how much I won yet. I was a player A, so I think it was about £6.80 in the Unequal Game, but nothing in the Equal Game. It was an experiment about co-operation, or coercion or something.
Spent a bit of time in the library making notes from journals for my essay and I've got a good few articles on panic disorder now. Need to read all these other articles I have saved on my computer. I want to try to write quite a lot of essay on the train on the way home on Friday, but I can't do that if I haven't done enough research. Decided to do addiction instead of personality disorders now, mostly because I missed the lecture on personality disorders so don't really understand anything about them.
Was super cold and hungry coming back and didn't feel like carrying on with work when I got in so I watched the first disc of Skins Series 1, woot. Now got to read this stoopid thing on Stress and the Brain which I need to read for my tutorial tomorrow morning. I meant to leave it quite late so I wouldn't forget what it said and have to re-read it, but this is a bit too late, oops.

Food:
3pm: packet of Pombears, apple; 3.30pm-5pm: four biscuits (offered to us by experimenters, how friendly); 8pm: three-egg omelette with cheese filling and side salad (lettuce, tomato, mayo); 9pm: canned Spotted Dick pudding with golden syrup.

A bientot xxx

11:29 pm: Sure enough worth fighting for
Yay, I did some maths this morning. Real maths, not Stats. It was for part of an experiment, something about testing gender responses to the questionnaire when we were told our gender was either bad at maths or good at maths. I hate those questionnaires because you always find out that other people didn't all have the same one as you, it feels a bit like cheating. Anyway the maths was fun, 15 minutes to do 15 questions and I think I answered about 12 of them, though I don't know if they were all correct. Also they gave us a different study at the same time about whether we would respect a leader more if they shared the same emotional responses as us. They gave us a newspaper clipping about some controversial issue and the feelings of an Exeter official about the issue (again we weren't all given the same representation of the official). It was difficult for me though because I've got wise to those sorts of studies - any study which presents opinions of a member of the university is going to contain fake information, since they're obviously not going to say the opinions of real people in case they got egged or something - but it's kind of hard to give your views on people when you know they're fictional. And not interestingly fictional, like Harry Potter.
I did actually go to the library as well, and after much searching found the stacks where they keep all the psychology journals. There's a lot. But now I actually know the names of some psychology journals, I can go on their websites and search their archives for relevant article details, then look 'em up in the library. Hopefully, sorted.
We had a really interesting Clinical lecture today, well interesting for me because it was about eating disorders. Huw told us this really sad case study about a 43 year old man who had been bulimic for 17 years and hadn't ever been able to tell anyone. But Huw only ever tells us case studies of people who got better, probably because they're all people he treated himself and he wants us all to think he's super, so fortunately this poor guy did get better.
I did another stir fry this evening but it didn't turn out so well as the other one. Probably mostly due to the fact that my beansprouts were three weeks old, and were pretty much beans by this point. And I made way too much rice, so I had to put some in the fridge, which is annoying, because I had put the leftover rice from Friday in with the new rice, so now I will have leftover rice and leftover leftover rice. Icky. And I have a half-onion that will need eating now too, what to do with rice and a half-onion that isn't curry?
We had some fun table tennis, although I'm still hopeless against anyone else except Christopher (and I still can't beat Christopher yet either). Also we decided we're very weird, because we both think that George is fit and that Kat's boobs are distracting. It's a very open and honest relationship, but it goes in some weird areas now and then. Like that time we had a conversation about which disgusting bodily functions are the most fun, when we'd only been going out for about four months. Odd times.

Food:
9am: 2x chocolate Pop Tarts (not heated); 1.15pm: Vanilla Choco Balls Crunch Corner, big mug of hot Ribena; 4.15pm: small mug of tea, four Milk Chocolate Digestives (which tasted like cinnamon, shrug); 7pm: icky stir fry (carrots, onions, tomato, and the very excellent addition of plum, plus gross beansprouts) and rice, glass of Dr Pepper; 9pm: Lion Bar

Goodnight all xxx

11:44 pm: While I've been stuck here
Sooo yes, haven't posted in a few days due to reasonable business/tiredness in the evenings, but here are my updates:

12:15 am: Lost
Hrrrumph, sleepy. Thirteen hours with the contact lenses in is not good for my eyes. Also I dropped both of them as I was taking them out so now I have no idea which is which. Will find out next time I put them in I suppose!
Had a - dare I say - fun Biology tutorial today, even though it was with Tim Hodgson (to be honest, he comes across like an absolute nimrod, but he's not a bad bloke at all I don't think. He just has very very dry humour. And also very weird humour. So you have to have a very special kind of brain to get him. I don't really get him, but I think he's kind of funny, with his Nobel Prize noises and his brain gummies). We were having a "Brain Challenge" quiz in which we were split up into the Braniacs or the Neuronuts (I was a Braniac, because I was late and they were nearer the door) and he asked us random questions relating to what we've learnt so far in Biology (minus the bits we've done on perception). I surprised myself with what I could remember actually, I earned us a fair few points. Also the fact that Latin is epic is in no doubt, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to confidently answer the question "what are sulci and gyri and which is which?" (they're the grooves and ridges on the surface of the brain, or cerebral cortex, and I knew that sulcus is Latin for ditch and gyrus is Latin for circle. So yeah, Latin rules all.
Started reading my Biopsychology textbook this morning, and in fact I was nearly late for my next lecture because it was astoundingly interesting. So yeah I think it will prove to be a good buy, worth the money probably. It explains classification of animals, you know like you have kingdom and then phylum and family and some others all the way down to species. And I've always wanted to know how that goes.
We did a very strange and wacky test called the t-test today in Stats. Longmore said to me yesterday that everyone's going to hate him next term because the week after our exam, in which we have to do all these tests with pen and paper and a crappy calculator whose only interesting function is a square root button, we'll all be shown how to do those same tests quickly and simply using a computer. But I do understand why they think it's important for us to do it this way first. This t-test apparently does the same thing as a Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs but involves variance and the z-test. So it's some sort of random hybrid test.
Went to the Ram after so the boys could get lunch, I've never been in there in the day but it's still all dark and pubby, it's fun. Also they have curly fries, the kind which are spicey, so I'll have to get some at some point. Those were one of the only pros of old school lunch in the old lunch v new lunch debate. Not that we ever even had one of those, particularly. We mostly just commented on missing the old stodgy puddings, which were abandoned in favour of tiny pretentious pots of jelly and yoghurt, and weird strawberry goo which looked like it was in a brown cake case but was actually sitting in a pot made out of chocolate. Man I miss school lunches.
Stoopid sitting at the back in Clinical, I need to stop trying to be friends with these people if I want to actually learn anything. Especially in Streatham Court, because there are big noisy fans at the back. And Huw was speaking very quietly today for some reason so I didn't catch much of what he said. I did get to see Tulip Crazy Hair rolling a cigarette in the middle of the lecture though, which was kind of odd. I mean, it's not like she could smoke it there, or anything. Couldn't really hear too well in the Research Methods practical either, because everyone kept talking around us and in the practical rooms there aren't any microphones so you have to rely on the lecturer speaking loud enough. It was one of the weirdest surveys I've ever answered, and I'm including ones from Facebook in that - essentially we just had to tick one of the five boxes ranging from very negative to very positive regarding how we feel about certain groups of people. And some of them were like child molesters and wife beaters and men who leave their families and feminists and such, but others were just very random, like Cornish people, people who smell bad, stuff like that. Also a few of them were like mentally retarded people or blind people - you can't say you hate them, that's just cruel!
I'm really shocked by some people's work ethic here. I know the rules for attendance are much less strict at university than at school, but it's still a place of learning and the learning process should be respected. After all, if you could learn it all without turning up to the lectures then they wouldn't have lectures, they'd just say "here's the website where you can read everything you need to know, go do it". And even then some people either wouldn't be bothered or wouldn't have been listening enough to know to do that anyway. The number of times I've told one of the boys or that Sian (I can't even think of an adjective for her, she is just dim and annoying and makes me mad, and unfortunately and unfathomably Steve is friends with her) something that we've been told, often more than once, in a lecture... They just don't listen. When they look at my notebooks from lectures their eyes go really wide, because they can't understand how I can have written so much down. But all I've done is write what I hear the lecturer say, then go through and annotate that with anything from the lecture slides that I missed. So I don't do anything beyond the resources that are handed to us, or at least I haven't yet. I don't know how they expect to learn anything by writing nothing down in the lectures. They think they're just going to remember it all, or what? And the fact that they keep missing tutorials because they "didn't get up early enough". Um, hello, you don't just hope you'll get up in time for your tutorial, you know you have a tutorial so you plan to be up in time for it (likewise with them and breakfast, don't get me started on catered people and their breakfasts). Tutorials are even more important to attend than lectures in some ways because a) they're not on WebCT and b) they help to consolidate what you've learnt in lectures. Although I suppose if you haven't been to the lectures there won't be any learning to consolidate. There's a lecture we have on a Friday afternoon which is Research Methods, and only about 50 people ever turn up to it. It honestly shocks me how people can think it's okay to not turn up to a lecture/tutorial/practical, much less to talk all the way through it and then leave before the end because you're bored. It's not like I want to sit in a room for two hours from 4 till 6 listening to some guy talk, but we all came here to study Psychology because we're interested in Psychology, and if you're finding all your lectures boring, or you can't be bothered to go to them or write anything down or try to learn what you've been told, then why the hell are you there? At the very least you could just fuck off so the rest of us who actually came to university to learn something by doing honest hard work can do so in peace.
//rant
Oh, well, not quite, mainly I just wanted to note here that I've decided not to let Steve, Jack, Matt or anyone else on my course for that matter copy/photocopy my notes, because I figure none of the people I've met can be that stupid or they wouldn't be at Exeter, because it's not like one of the worst universities in the country, and if I can put in the hard work then so can they. I'm not going to be friends with Nat Lane three times over again. So there, I have decreed that in the publicity of my journal, and so it shall be.
In other news I'm a sodding idiot because I lost my phone, either it was in Newman A during Stats or in the Ram afterwards. But fortunately it was found and handed to Lost Property, and they rang my mum and she texted Chris and he walked all over the place looking for me and then waited outside my flat for half an hour so he could tell me. So I'll have to go and get it tomorrow, it's in Northcote House which is soooo far away but it's my own damn fault. Exeter seems to want me to lose all the possessions I hold most dear to me. This is definitely one of those times when I really wish I weren't here.
We played table tennis again today, since Christopher didn't have frisbee, and I didn't win any games still. I did win twice at chess though. And I emailed the Guild President to ask how I can set up a chess club here, yippee.

Food:
9.30am: strawberry Pop Tart (not heated) mug of hot Ribena; 12.30pm: two slices of cheese on toast (white bread); 6.15pm: apple; 7.30pm: fishfingers and baked beans with a little lettuce and tomato (lettuce goes with beans super well)

I'm annoyed because I feel like cereal for breakfast but have no milk, poo.
I've got myself into a right annoyed mood now. I'm gonna go to bed.
Night xxx

11:18 pm: Universally challenged
Had a bit of a glum feeling this morning so I didn't get up early AGAIN. It's okay, I have a tutorial tomorrow at 10 so I will have to get up reasonably early for that. And I bought the Biopsychology textbook today so I can start to write up my Biology notes while actually being able to understand them, and that gives me something to do so I can have a reason to get up now. Need to find out if there's a Clinical textbook I might need to help with writing up notes. Actually that Treating Complex Cases book is quite helpful since it explains a lot about the symptoms of the conditions it's discussing. Textbooks cost so much money... the one I got today was £45, but I supplemented it with some of my book tokens collected from past birthdays, Christmases and Prize Givings. Should be able to budget it fairly well if I only buy one book every now and then and go about half and half money and tokens.
Had THE MOST confusing and overwhelming talk on choosing postgraduate study today. Apparently if I wanted to become a clinical psychologist I would have to do my three-year BSc as I'm doing now, then a year to get a Master's, and then to stand any chance of doing a clinical doctorate I'd probably have to do a research PhD beforehand. So basically I would be at uni for about ten years. Which would suck. I imagine Ill do the four years inclusing the Master's and then do some minor work (and hopefully be writing books anyway, so won't be totally poor) and then if I want I can go back to uni and study for my PhD when my children are younger, since I don't want to be working too much when I have young children as I'd like to be around for them. Life is so haaaard.
The University Challenge trials were crazy! We all sat in a lecture theatre and the Student Guild President read out the questions and we had to write down the answers. There was a General Knowledge round and a Science round, the GK round being like stuff about literature and history and stuff like that - I know I definitely did better in the Science round! And I think Christopher did too... It'd be cool to get through but I doubt I will. Also it would be really scary.
Had my repeat of the Remembering Words and Faces research today; I was sooo late because I went into town with Christopher and it took me much longer to get back from town to Washington Singer than I thought. But Chris Longmore didn't mind, in fact he was just relieved that I had actually turned up and not dropped out. Weirdly the test seemed actually a lot easier than before, and I did a bit better in it because this time I got £4.50 and last time I got £3.75. They used the same faces as before, I think they're trying to test how it affects your response when you get more familiar with the faces or something. It was weird because we were talking about the study and stuff about face perception and recognition and so on, and he said how they try to pick unattractive or relatively plain female faces, because they know most of the people doing the study will be girls (since most psychology students are girls) and they don't want any guys who do it (or lesbians) to be distracted by attractive faces. And then we started talking about attractiveness and how it all works, and why people seem to have the same general standards for attractiveness and so on, and then we kind of ended up just talking about random stuff like Guitar Hero and Star Wars. In the end we chatted for like two hours until he said we had to leave because they would be locking the building soon. So yeah, that was an uber-cool thing I did today.
As a result of that not only did I have a late dinner but also I think it's about two hours earlier than it is, since I expected to be back at 5 and actually got back about half seven. So I must to bed very soon.

Food:
10am: three slices of white toast with butter and marmalade; 1pm: small buttered white roll; 2.30pm: packet of Pombears, apple; 7.30pm: Yorkie bar; 9.30pm: sausages, buttered potatoes and cauliflower with ketchup, half a mug of tea. Just gonna go warm up the other half now since I forgot about it, oops.

I know I should do P&Ms every day, but tbh sometimes my days just aren't terribly interesting enough to do them. I'm sure that's not a surprise to you.
Toodle-oo xxx

11:26 pm: Little pains
Hello hello.
I want to make this quick since I've got a busy busy day tomorrow: careers workshop at 12, the leg it to Queens for 1 for the University Challenge tryouts, and back to WSL later for research participation at 4. (I've found a kindred spirit; some guy called Jake Holiday will have done 12 hours of research participation by the end of next week - I'll have done 13.25 ha!)
Late night last night so didn't really get up that early today, and then had a fairly dull morning doing the rest of the notes from the video on Colour Perception and last Research Methods lecture (you forget, when Kessler's talking, that actually what you're learning is super dull). Also I managed this time to book my train ticket for the 27th so that's a-go-go.
We had another perception lecture today but this one was the first of two on sound - I'm kind of sad that they got rid of this old Perception module as it seems like it would've been fun to learn about taste/smell and touch as well as vision and hearing. But those are the most important two I suppose. And probably the most interesting. Also I learnt that the reason why you fall over a lot when you're drunk is because when alcohol goes into your bloodstream it can also get into your inner ear, and it's much less dense than the normal inner ear fluid so it throws your balance systems out of whack. Cool, huh? I didn't write anything down in that lecture though because it was all a bit rawr, so I have to watch the video over and over, poo.
Also, the answer to "if a tree falls in the forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is definitely "it depends what subject you do". In physics, it's yes, because of subjective sound and objective sound. In psychology, it's no, because sound is a perceptual quality with no physical existence. But the luckiest ones are the philosophers, because they don't have to find an answer.
Did the rest of Research Methods notes and all the ones from that super-boring Clinical Lecture yesterday, so I'm all caught up apart from today's lecture. And I did this weird quiz which I think might go towards my grade for the year? I'm not sure - it was on WebCT, and it said "Plagiarism and Cheating module" and then there was a whole list of pages you had to read through with a little quiz at the end, and then it said my quiz had been sent for assessment. So I guess I'll hear about that in a few days? Or maybe not until I get results for my January exams next year? I dunno, but they haven't told us anything about it so I hope it's not vital since most people won't know to do it.
Also I've done a wee bit of work on my essay, but only insofar as deciding what serious mental health problems I want to talk about in my essay and looking on WebCT to see what references Huw used in the lectures regarding each MHP (so I can steal them). I've decided to do depression, anxiety (including OCD, phobias and PTSD), personality disorders and eating disorders. They kind of seem like four fairly major MHPs right? Obviously I can't talk about all the ones that exist but I need to focus on the main ones I think (the title is "Is there strong evidence that cognitive behaviour therapy works for serious mental health problems?")
I AM ANNOYED. Because my mum got a letter from the Driving Standards Agency today saying that my driving test has been changed from January 8th to January 11th. Which is fine, except that's the day my Easter term starts, so I kind of will be in Exeter on that day. And no one even asked me! It's a shit system they've got going on over there. So I sent them an email saying if possible I'd like to have one before the 8th rather than after if the 8th is no good, so hopefully they will say okay, here is one for the 7th, sorry.
Quite a lot of people still up for Secret Theme Santa =) but some people are worried because of money so I'm not sure how many people will actually do it... I've thought of a good few themes anyway so that's lucky, and we think we know how we're going to sort out who gets which theme without having to meet up and pick them out of a hat.

P&Ms:
James talking to me on the way out of Lafrowda: p=8, m=8 (James lives in the flat above me; he was leaving for a lecture at the same time as me and said hello and asked how things were going, so we chatted until we got to the Business School where my lecture was. He does Physics, and he's really sweet and kind of crazy, and as I found out today like Doctor Who, win. But would he have spoken to me if I'd been wearing trousers and flats as opposed to a short skirt and heels? Well, I wonder indeed).

Food:
10.30am: 2x strawberry Pop Tarts (not heated); 1.30pm: plum, packet of Hula Hoops, Vanilla Choco Balls Crunch Corner; 4.30pm: big mug of hot chocolate, four pink wafer biscuits; 8pm: bowl of Heinz Chicken and Vegetable Big Soup, small white roll

Want to eat something now but won't.
Night all xxx

12:58 am: I've seen a Coke advert - Christmas is coming
Tum ti tum, and I got back so early from table tennis too. Damn thetrainline for being so slow. I was trying to buy my train ticket home for a couple of weeks away (I'm getting the train so I can get back on a Friday, since I want to go to the Wally Christmas Fair) but in between pages it was really slow and whenever I got to the payment page it kept crashing. So I tried going back to "start again" but then when I got to the payment page my old order was still saved so I would've ended up with two tickets. So I spent ages trying to remove one (there was a button saying "Remove", so it wasn't because I'm retarded, I just have slow internet/computer) and then the payment page crashed again so I just quit it and I'll try again tomorrow.
Also I spent quite a long time sorting out my spreadsheet for my NatWest account, because I first wanted to work out my current weekly budget based on how many weeks of term there are left (since in the holidays I'll use my Abbey), and then I thought it would be fun to work out how much I could save if I only spent as much each remaining week as I have in each week so far. So then I had to work out my average weekly expenditure, and take that away from my current budget, and multiply it by the number of weeks left. And then I thought it would be fun to do that every week from now on, so I had to make loads of new columns and go through working out each column for all the weeks that have gone (because obviously there has to be continuity). And y'know, it didn't take THAT long, because I could just fill down the formulae, but it was definitely a diversion. I love spreadsheets. And yippee because currently my projected savings are about £340. Which is much better than Charlotte, who has £50 left for the two weeks until she gets some money given to her by her parents. Fail.
Stayed at Christopher's last night and thus managed to make him not go to a lecture... Although he maybe wouldn't have gone anyway, usually I make him go to lectures when he doesn't want to. So probably he wouldn't have gone anyway, the only difference being this time I didn't complain. I had meant to go to the library for the morning to look up journal articles for my Clinical essay, but I'll do that on Wednesday. Had to leave Chris's at 11 anyway because I wanted to get back and change and then get up to Devonshire House for 12 because they were meant to be selling tickets for the PsySoc and X-Eng Christmas Formal from 12-2. Funny how there's a Psychologists' and Engineers' Formal, huh? (Christopher's doing Engineering, in case it's not clear why that's funny). Anyway I waited until half twelve and no one showed up, so I left and then checked my email for the first time in a couple of days and found one saying they'd sold out so the sale was off. Glummm. Should still be able to go though as the Engineers still have tickets.
WE HAD THE MOST BORING LECTURE IN THE WORLD TODAY. It was something about... giving us awareness of what goes on in the world of therapy, or something? Some new scheme they're developing to try to help more people with therapy? I really don't know. It was one of those lectures where they turn all the lights really low and the lecturer has this really droney voice and the topic isn't very interesting so everyone's just like ...zzzz.... I can barely bring myself to look up the slides on WebCT. It'll bring back memories.
Didn't get much work done after the lecture due to trying to find an appropriate train journey for me to take and being very bad at internet. I won't go into it much; suffice to say that I got myself very confused, and was also trying to find a return journey via Redhill and Reading for Sunday night when I don't think there are any. Well, only if I wanted to go via Redhill to Victoria, then from Paddington via Reading to Exeter, but that would be ridiculous.
Christopher came over after his late lecture and ran a virus scan on my computer which was very lovely, and I have lots of cookies. We had some tasty pasta and then went off to table tennis, but we didn't run this time because he's messed up his arms from playing frisbee and they hurt a lot. He also made me try to catch a potato with my eyes closed (he found a potato on the pavement on the way back from the Impy on Friday, and it was still in his coat pocket; when I said that was gross because he found it on the ground he said "well potatoes grow in the ground" and I couldn't really argue with that). TT was good and we had another teeny training sesh, serves this time. It was cute because Heather joined in too even though she's on the committee so supposedly "good".

P&Ms:
TT: p=7, m=8 (Sarah said my serves were really good, and that I should do more backhand ones not just forehand ones, because they are equally good. But it's very hard when there's lots of people around, especially if they are behind me); Wally Christmas Presents p=8, m=9 (WOOHOO because people are saying we should do a Secret Santa, but the special kind of Secret Santa we invented where instead of having a secret person you buy a present for, everyone has a secret theme and they buy presents for everyone else based on that theme. And that's woohoo because it means I get to buy presents for everyone I emailed which is obviously what I wanted in the first place, rather than like in a conventional Secret Santa, and because I will get presents guaranteed from the others, and because I started this whole ball rolling and people are actually interested and getting involved in it. Kind of makes up for when Rosi and the others would do the theme Santa in fifth form and I wasn't a part of it).

Food:
10:45am: two pieces of white buttered toast; 1pm: Ginster's all-day breakfast sandwich (icky); 4:30pm: small mug of tea (no milk or sugar), 6-square bar of plain Dairy Milk; 7:15pm: bowl of macaroni with onion, bacon and tomato sauce (tell me a better word and I'll stop calling it a sauce Christopher) and grated cheddar cheese, glass of apple juice; 8:30pm: Kit Kat Chunky (not my choice; Christopher wanted Fruit Pastilles but accidentally pressed D6 instead of D8).


Y'day: got up earlyish and spent the morning doing work; I actually finally started the essay/discussion questions from the Haslam and McGarty book. Haha, I can't not hear that in my head in a German accent. I did three and wrote quite a big paragraph for each, so I felt kind of okay about stopping when I got to the question: "what is there to be learned from studying Psychology?" =/
Also wrote up the notes from Thursday's Clinical and Stats lectures. I love Stats, it's so simple. Partly that's why I love Thursdays, but also because they're the days when I often have tutorials and practicals so they are busy busy. Also I think yesterday was when I finished the massive five-way intersecting Su Doku that I got in the paper I found on the train from Victoria last weekend.
Kind of got distracted while doing the notes as well because I tried to do them while watching Saturday's X Factor, but that doesn't really work when both things you want to look at are on the computer so I gave up trying to multi-task in the end. And then I remembered that John Barrowman had been on Family Fortunes last weekend so I watched that too, oops. Which is why it took me basically half a day to annotate notes from two lectures, lol.
Told Christopher I would be over about 6 which meant leaving about 5.30, but then just as I was about to leave I realised if he was staying over my room would get really messy, because that's what always happens, and it was quite messy anyway, so I had a massive tidying frenzy and cleared up mostly my whole floor, apart from the stuff that stays by my bed and the bit next to the desk where bags sit. I kind of had the urge to sort out all my recycling too but I knew I didn't have time, kind of gay though since I probably won't feel like doing it again for a while. Oddly enough I still got to Christopher's at 6 even though I only left at about twenty to.
Anyway the reason I went over there was because we had planned to watch Doctor Who together, and OH MY GOD IT WAS SO GOOD!!! Like, almost good enough that you could pretend Russell hadn't been involved in it. The moments when the nuke exploded, and when the Doctor was going all evil, and then the Ood appeared, and then the trailer for the Christmas show!! Not to mention the fair scariness of the water monsters. Ruby if you're reading this you're hopefully agreeing. Then we watched the X Factor result show =( another insane result. That's the second time in a row when it's gone to Deadlock and the act which was definitely better and deserved to be there more was the one which went out. I miss Lucie. And then there was the first episode of the new series of Top Gear, which although I am a girl and not really very interested in cars (beyond my own car, because it's cute and enables me to get places, and fancy cars, because they are shiny), is a very amusing and entertaining programme.
We had planned to go to Timepiece and then stay at mine after since it's closer, but then we decided we couldn't be bothered to go to Timepiece, so we just stayed at his and had one of those amazing evenings where we laid in bed and talked about silly rubbish until we felt sleepy. We have lots of love.

Food:
10.30am: big bowl of Raisin Wheats with semi-skimmed milk; 1.30pm: TOASTED BACON SANDWICH OHH YERRR and an apple; 4.30pm: big mug of tea (no milk or sugar), four Milk Chocolate Digestives; 7pm: Sharwood's Jalfrezi chicken curry with chicken flavour packet rice; 9pm: four squares of Sainsbury's Basics Dark Chocolate

Toodlepip xxx

01:31 am: Sleepy beep
Graarghgbleeargh. That is how I feel.
Had a very odd sort of day in that I got up at about 1, not good, so my day's timings were all mixed up. Forgot to fill in my shopping questionnaire before I went out as I was in a hurry so I did it when I got back, which isn't really what you're supposed to do but I tried to remember as well as possible how I was feeling just before I went out, and I think I did quite well.
Got me a new umbrella so that's yay, it's black with a starry pattern. And I got some Christmas cards and a present for Verity (crazy colourful fruity bath salts) because it was Mix and Match 3 for 2 in Marks and Spencer. The Christmas cards are amazing and cute, one of them has a cartoon penguin on it and it says "have an ice Christmas"!!! LOL. Me and Christopher got distracted looking at baby clothes because we are very odd and want a tiny cute baby.
My back and shoulders are sore because I got quite a lot of shopping and had to carry it all back, and it was a bit scary because the bag handle scraped my tin cut and it bled quite a lot for quite a long time, that scary kind of blood where it comes out in big dark beads. But also I got some new Smith's narrow-ruled paper and a fabby sewing kit for 75p which had 30 assorted needles and 12 different (and, more to the point, useful) colours of thread, as well as some other random crap.
We had planned to go to the Impy so Christopher could get some more ales, so after my lovely long hot shower I waited for ages for Christopher to tell me when to arrive but he didn't, so then I tried to ring him and his phone was off. So since I was bored I decided to just go and ring his buzzer and hope that he was there and there hadn't been some kind of miscommunication. But when I got there I found out that they were going into town to where Dom was working before going back to the Impy. So my cunning plan of wearing nice heels fell down because now from walking to Chris's, then into town, then back to the Impy, then back home, my feet rather feel like they want to fall off.
Also saw G in the Impy because she was there visiting Anna and Viki. Kind of awkward since I don't really talk to any of them. And also because before they called out to me I had just been kissing Christopher quite ferociously. And they were probably there. But oh well.
Bad food day today:

Food:
2pm: two sausages, two rashers of bacon (all grilled), two eggs (scrambled); 6pm: bottle of lemon Lipton ice tea, cherry scone; 8pm: three rice crispie squares; 9pm: a chocolate and hazelnut cookie (made by Christopher and his flatmates); 11pm: packet of salt and vinegar crisps; 11.30pm: blackcurrant Sourz spritzer, several Ready Salted crisps.

You see what I mean.
Got to do lots of work tomorrow, whoop de whoop de whoop. Also must remember to watch X Factor before the results show in the evening. DOCTOR WHO IS ON TOMORROW.
Whatever was under my T key is now under my backspace key. Why can't it be under something like hash which I virtually never use?
Also when did the LJ time thing change? It used to post whatever time you started writing, but now the time changes as you write so it posts whatever time you finish. Clever.
Night night, oooh, fuzzy vision, that's fun. xxx

01:34 am: You broke the code
Hmm, well I'm pissed off because I've just had an email from a girl who said she would sell me a textbook saying that the book is no longer available. And, y'know, it's her book and everything, but she said "yes the book is still available, when and where would be good for you to meet me to buy the book?" and I emailed her back with a suggested time and place, waited there at the suggested place for ten minutes since I hadn't had a response from her to say whether she was coming or not, and she didn't show up. So I'm assuming she hasn't actually been as shit as to sell it to someone else; I mean it's not like we had a conract or anything but still, if you say you can give someone something you shouldn't just give it to someone else unless you can give the first person a very good reason, eg. they will kill me otherwise. So anyway I emailed her back just sort of saying, um, okay, sorry why is that exactly? So hopefully she does have a good reason. Or she might just not reply. Some people really suck.
Other reasons for being pissed off: 1) it rained in the extreme today. Like, the kind of rain where there are miniature rivers being formed along pathways and where you have to take some fairly major detours to avoid walking in puddles. And it was also windy, not quite enough for me to lean into it but enough that I felt physically propelled by it walking back from WSL. I kind of felt like I was going to die. Also I felt a bit dim because I had my umbrella with me but I couldn't use it, because if I held it at any angle other than against the wind it turned inside out, and if I held it against the wind I was in danger of being trapped inside it (since the little catch is broken so the only thing holding it open was my own strength, which isn't very super) So people probably thought I was kind of odd. 2) My T key is stuck, so I have to hit it quite hard in order to type the letter T. Which makes for some pretty odd-looking writing if I don't since T is like the second most common letter. 3) I cut both of my index fingers today. Not on purpose, mainly because I'm an idiot and a spastic. The left one was first while I was trying to separate some frozen sausages by levering them apart with a knife, and that one was sort of stabby and bled a lot and really throbs now when I move that finger. I blame the fact that Charlotte was in the room, and I hate people being in the kitchen when I'm trying to cook/prepare food. It throws me right off. Also I couldn't separate the frozen bacon slices so I will have to eat six slices of bacon in about three days max, how gay. The right index finger was more dim tbh, I was opening up one of those tinned puddings where you have to take off the top and the bottom of the tin and then push the pudding out, but I couldn't get the top part to come all the way off because my tin opener is a bit rubbish, and then when I was trying to take off the other side I sliced my finger on the edge of the lid. That one was a bit more worrying actually even though I don't think it bled as much, because when I looked at it I could see silver bits in the cut which I assume was metal. But I washed it out and put TCP on it so hopefully I won't get some kind of puddingy infection.
Reasons for being cheerful... hmm I can't think of any of those right now. Well maybe a few for the day. 1) Someone left 10p in the vending machine in WSL so I saved 10p. 2) It's the end of week 15 which means it's only five weeks until the Christmas holidays. 3) I think Jack and Matt maybe do actually sort of like me a bit. So that's nice.
Reasons for being glum: 1) I was reading my S1 notes from A level this morning and definitely found some errors in them. Also I'm not sure if the perms and coms formulae I have in there are correct. And I can't figure out how the easier formula for variance comes from the harder one; if it still applies here (and I don't see why it wouldn't) then I'll use the easier one, because it's easier. 2) One side of a disc of Friends wouldn't work in my computer so I had to skip it. 3) I would very much like a baby. And also a cat. But I can afford neither of these things. Also I'm still not ready for the whole idea of labour (labour scares me more than the idea of being a parent). But I think you kind of get mentally prepared for that only when you actually find out you're going to have a baby. 4) I miss Christopher and I wish he was here wih me. 5) I also miss my mummy, because she is crazy and my mummy.
Thought I was going to have a nice leisurely morning until my Research Methods lecture at 2 when I woke up this morning. Then at half ten when I was not yet dressed nor breakfasted I remembered that I had a tutorial at 11. But I managed to get there on time, and dudes were all in the same group as me. We were discussing key methodological concepts using various different theories in groups, and we had to consider how you would test the determinants of attractiveness in guppies. Yes that's right, those tiny little fish. Interesting? Not especially. Depression would have been a lot easier, especially the definition.
From this day forward whenever one of us does a study that has really good results it will be known as "sexy data". That's Kessler's description of data that's really cool. He is a very odd man.
Had another Biology practical today, much like the other one in that we did virtually no work and just messed about on the computer. We were doing this Iowa Gambling Task where you had to pick one out of a set of four cards and you would either win some money, or you'd win some and lose some too. It's a test they do with patients with frontal lobe damage to check their cognitive functioning, because the theory is that people with frontal lobe damage have pretty much no concept of risk or learning from mistakes. See in the task cards A and B gave high wins and C and D gave low wins, but also A and B were much more likely to give high losses and C and D not. Well, that was the aim, but sometimes D did give high losses too, and A seemed to give higher losses than B. And it depended how often you picked the card because if you picked it lots of times in a row you were more likely to get a loss than if you varied your choices. And I actually figured all this out in the task and tried to win as much as possible by not picking A at all and trying to pick C often towards the end which seemed to work very well(we were in pairs, one of us doing the task and the other scoring; Steve borrowed £4000 and won £2100. But he just picked random cards) and on my second-to-last card I had £2350 which would have pu me in profit, since I'd only borrwed £2000 which was what we started with. But then on the last card I lost £2000! So I didn't win a gummy brain sweet =(
Got quite a lot of work to do I think. But I also must do shopping so I can fill in my shopping survey and get lots of juicy credit. Mus remember to do my Post-It with my appointment listings on for next week.

P&Ms:
My mood is pretty well deconstructed above. It hasn't been a terribly pleasureable day.
Dicking around with dudes in WSL computer lab playing stupid computer games after getting soaked in the rain: p=9, m=7 (didn't fail too badly at the crazy football game, only lost like 9-6 or something so I didn't embarrass myself); Facebook message from Rhi: p=9, m=7 (but I know Rhi loves me).

Food:
10.30am: apple; 1.15pm: tuna sandwich on white bread (unbuttered), packet of plain Pombears; 3.30pm: cup of tea, white chocolate Crunch bar, two Milky Bar somethings (I don't know what they're called, but they're like white chocolate Galaxy Minstrels); 8.15pm: fish in breadcrumbs, chips (which I MADE), cauliflower, Sainsbury's Basics syrup sponge pudding.

My tummy is very uncomfortable. I want to go to sleep now, and since I have to wake up I'd like this to be one of those things where my mood changes for no reason overnight and I go to bed feeling sad and wake up feeling great.
Goodnight, peace on earth xxx

11:57 pm: The getting up early went really quite well. Up at 7.30 and then tidied up some clothes just to make sure I would wake up enough not to crawl back into bed and go to sleep. Then down to business, took notes out of that book for several hourrrs. It is a very interesting book though. But it would have been much easier to photocopy it. I don't know how much photocopying costs though. And I wanted infro from like half the book so it would probably take just as long to photocopy as to just copy. I now have information on CBT in social phobia, panic disorder and agoraphobia, depressive disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder. I wanted obsessive-compulsive disorder too but that chaper was soooo long I didn't fancy trying to do that. I'll do it if I can get the book out again before I have to hand the essay in. Also the personality disorders. And the eating disorders, and the abuse, and the aggression, and the psychosis... Yes, I like fucked up people, they are interesting and easy for me to understand.
I returned the book and it was weird because you put it on this little conveyer belt thing and it gets taken off back into a little room to be sorted, very weird. Whatever happened to just going into the library and saying "hello, I borrowed this book, here you can have it back now"? Just put a reserve on it so I should get it back again in a couple of weeks and then I can look at some more stuff.
We learnt about normal distributions today (bell curve and that) and a very rough way of finding out if something has a normal distribution. Also we did standard deviation and a stupid easy test called a z-test which you use when you only have one participant with one data point. But I'm not sure about that test because we used it to decide that a man with an IQ of 85 after a stroke had not necessarily been significantly brain damaged. But what if he was like a super genius before? Then it would be extremely significant brain damage. And he'd be really sad to think that his IQ was now ridiculously low but nobody minded. Also I haaaate my rubbish non-scientific calculator with its lack of fractions and brackets.
Also some crazy crap about PTSD. But it was a very odd lecture, Huw wasn't very on form. I don't really remember that I learnt very much.
Wow, I was just replying to loads of emails in my Exeter inbox, and I typed my name so many times it started to look odd. I'm used to that happening with words, but not my name. I now have another hour experiment lined up plus the Words and Faces one I did before is being repeated so I'll get another 1.5 for that, and I have the 1.5 lined up for the shopping study which is another 4 hours' credit which brings my definite total for this term to at least 9.75!! Out of 10. And it's still a little over a month until we break up so I still have plenty of time to find myself another 0.25 credits! Haha I'm so full of win right now.
It was very rainy today which is sad as I made a poor choice of trousers and of shoes (trousers too long and big so they dragged on the ground and got VERY wet, shoes made of kind of suedey material) and I had no umbrella because the one I brought is broken and I keep forgetting to bring my other one from home. And I'm too cheap to buy a new one.
Also I found some of my plates in the sink today which is very odd since I never put them in the sink. So either someone used them, or moved them. Both are very not acceptable.
Been at a pub quiz this evening, it was a PsySoc social (I reeeally want some PsySocks now...) and I took Christopher along so he met Steve et al. (look at me goooo Psychology peeps). It was a vair good quiz actually, we came joint second and missed first by like four points or something which is RIDICULOUS because we were amazing. And there was no second or third prize so we got nada. Very glum.
Time for sleeps now, up early because apparently there's some crazy penny sale at M&S. And then I have a Research Methods tutorial at 11, snore. Wtf happens in a Research Methods tutorial? I'm suspicious of them, because we only have two whereas in all the other modules we have three. And I have a practical tomorrow, very dull dishwater.

P&Ms:
None that I can think of particularly... I feel agreeable currently. Not super happy, but not despairing. Just pretty okay =)

Food:
8am: rather large bowl of Raisin Wheats with semi-skimmed milk; 12.15pm: small amount of reheated rice and peas, apple; 2.15pm: Yorkie bar; 5.30pm: fish finger sandwich, cherry scone, glass of Dr Pepper; 8pm-10pm (ish): 2x vodka and Coke.

Baaaa-ye (that's what sheep say) xxx

11:19 pm: Wherefore art thou Nerdosaurus?
Hmm, something is wrong with me because I'm waking up sooo super tired. So something bad is happening to me as I dream.
Had another doze/nap this morning after I woke up so got up at 10 instead of 8.30 but I felt much better after it. I'd planned to do some laundry but then had no change so couldn't do that. But I sorted all my washing and left it out to remind me to do it. Then started making some notes out of this book I have to return tomorrow (I got out four books last Thursday, three long loan which I have until December 3rd and one short loan which I had for a week. And which one did I decide to take home with me to read at the weekend? Not the short loan one, no way, that would have been too smart) and found it's actually really interesting so I'll have to check it out again sometime for a gander at the bits I won't get to read. Probably a useful book if I decide to go into therapy too so might buy it if I can get it quite cheap from Amazon.
Had a wee talk to go to at 12 and I got some research participation signed off beforehand so now I have 5.75 hours signed off. And I got the questionnaires for a shopping study where I have to fill in a mood questionnaire before each of my next ten food shopping trips and they're gonna see how my mood affects my shopping, or I guess that's what they're doing anyway. And I get 1.5 credits for that so that's 7.25 credits. And if I can get three more experiments in within the next six weeks of term then that'll be about another three hours and then I'll have my whole required ten hours done within the first term (we have to hand in the sheet by April). So then I can do more studies next term but get paid for them, win. Or I can do studies which only offer course credit just for fun and because apparently it improves your chances of doing well in the module if you do more than 10 hours.
Anyway the talk I went to was kind of interesting but also very disheartening as it was an "effective application form" talk and I realised I have done precisely nothing worth note outside of my studies in my life. Or not that I can think of anyway, but then I have problems with self-belief. So I decided I'm definitely going to try to start a chess club. But I'm not sure how you go about starting a club so I need to find out. I believe it involves some kind of market research to find out how many people would be interested in the club, before they actually let you start one. En masse email here I come...
So then I went to the Keystore for some food and dutifully completed the first mood questionnaire for the shopping survery. And I got a £2 as part of my change which was also super since the washing machine costs £2. Sadly I could get no chicken in the Keystore but I got pretty much everything else, including a big bottle of Dr Pepper and some Oxo cubes so now I can have onion gravy with my leftover onions, woot. However all my food officially does not fit in my cupboard. It's decidedly insane to have cereal/canned foods/spreads/pasta/rice/drinks and cling film/tinfoil/freezer bags/kitchen towels/oven gloves all in the same cupboard. I NEED MY OWN FUCKING KITCHEN. Why do I always want to grow up more than I can?
Anyhoo then got all the laundry done, weirdly I hadn't checked the time I started it but I guessed when it would finish and I arrived back at the laundry room like ten seconds before it finished. Got lots of trousers hanging up in my room now. I wonder how much it costs for alterations? Hopefully not too much since at least three pairs need altering, probably more since I think all my seven pairs of trousers are too long. Damn my short legs.
Pootled over to Christopher's in the afternoon and we both did work - we could have worked better separately I suppose (well not suppose, there was definite occurrence of distraction) but I missed him, and thought if we both needed to work we could do it in the same room, why not? *Dr Zoidberg voice* Ended up staying there for ages, well into the evening, but got quite a few notes done. I swear if somone had explained to me about this whole referencing malarkey before I applied for Psychology I would've done Latin instead. Much easier. All your references come out of the dictionary. I've done two chapters of the book and there's about eight more I'd like to look at, but could cut it down to three or so maybe. It's all so interesting though!
I realised I have soooo much to do. It's quite scary. So I wrote it down in a list and now I'm trying not to think about it all at once, just take it a bit at a time. Otherwise I will panic. And we don't want that.

P&Ms:
Remembering the way to David Crelley's office: p=7, m=8 (WSL be CRAZY - I swear it's like The Burrow or Hogwarts or somewhere, in that parts of it exist which don't seem to be achitecturally possible); application form talk: p=4, m=2 (you get that); actually starting notes for my essay and writing down references as I go: p=5, m=7 (kind of fun, but not the MOST fun thing ever); Facebook comment from Gem ("hellooooo i missed you at the weekend! when are you next back? xxx") p=9, m=8 (I was missed? By someone I actually like? I feel validated by that); talking to Bender on chat: p=7, m=7 ('cause I like Bender and it's cool when people actually talk to you on Facebook chat).

Food:
10.15am: 2 chocolate Pop Tarts (cold); 2pm: toasted cheese sandwich (white bread), glass of Dr Pepper; 8.30pm: 7 Maryland chocolate chip cookies; 9pm: cottage pie (from the Esso garage, microwaved), small chunk of hot dog pizza (as opposed to pizza hot dog - ahh, memories of Amsterdam); 9.30pm: Big Green Triangle

All of that stuff in the evening was eaten with the knowledge and acceptance of Christopher. He also ate seven cookies (in fact, he had 7.5 and I had 6.5) and a big green triangle and the rest of that pizza. I resist any criticism of our actions.
I need to eat the end of my first pack of Raisin Wheats tomorrow morning so I can put this other box in my cupboard. It's been sitting around for days.
Alarm at 7 tomorrow I think. Got to get up a bit earlier now if I want to get all this shit done. All work and no play makes Ashley very dull, therefore time management is essential.
Ta-ra-ra-boom-di-ay xxx

09:42 pm: Ride the wave
Soooo here's the weekend:

( Three stops and home )
Today I woke up feeling oddly shit and tired and so I reset my alarm for ten, and then following that for eleven. I probably would have carried on sleeping but I had a research participation session at 12 so I had to get up. I have no idea what happened to make me so depressed. I can only surmise it might be leftover sleep deprivation from the weekend, possibly too much salt and not enough water from Domino's Pizza last night, or maybe I just had a really rubbish dream that I don't remember.
Anyway it kind of helped with the study anyway because they were trying to find out how your mood affected your performance on a meory task. Basically there were two groups of depressed people, and one group was asked to focus on themselves and their feelings and then perform the task while thinking about that, and the other group did the same but focusing on thought about the outside world and surrounding environment. The memory task was to look at two groups of words each containing three words, one group in red and one in blue, and then a coloured box with a word in would come up and you had to say whether the word in the box was a word you'd just seen in the colour that matched the colour of the box (so, if a red box came up and the word in it was one that was just in the red group, you say yes, and if it was in the blue group or was just a random word you say no). The theory is that if you're feeling depressed you're more likely to answer yes to negative words even if you haven't just seen them. So me feeling shit was quite useful since I didn't have to take much effort in maintaining the negative mood they tried to induce in me by having me focus on myself. However it still didn't really work since I'm very good at remembering words and when I'm doing something like that I don't tend to think about how I feel, I just think about the task.
Finally finished the Biology notes, well I have to write a tiny definition for the horopter but I have my epic dictionary for that. Just in time for the final visual perception lecture which was on colour. And of course for those who did Physics and Chemistry A Levels colour is old school. Went back to Birks for a bit afterwards and watched some Family Guy with the dudes, but then they all had to go for dinner (losers who don't cook) so I came back to campus. Washed my hair and tidied up all the clothes that were dumped in front of my wardrobe. I really need to remove all the recycling from my room, it's beginning to pile up quite considerably. Made some sweet and sour pork (with the scary raw pork) with rice and peas, except I did too much rice and peas so I will have to eat that tomorrow. Reminds me, I still need to put that in the fridge. Chatted for a bit to Ellena and Matt Polydor on the Facebooks, me and Matt are semi-driving test buddies since his is in December. Nice to have a driving test buddy since Hannah went and passed her test the second time. Fuck Debbie. Yes I'm still annoyed about that.

P&Ms:
sleeping too much: p=6, m=3 (lovely sleep, but I really shouldn't need it and should be able to make myself get up even when I don't want to); sitting with the dudes in the lecture: p=8, m=6 (no no get this, they called out to me to get my attention when we were waiting to get into the lecture room. Therefore, they actually want to hang out with me XD however I felt kind of gay that I went to sit with them at the back even though I prefer to sit at the front. But making friends is hard. Once the friendship is solidified then I can be a nerdy loner); cooking sweet and sour: p=7, m=7 (first time I've ever cooked raw meat! I know I know, that's insane. There was a bit too much meat though, I don't like a lot of meat. And too much rice, obviously. But everything ended up cooked at the same time so yay).

Food:
8.45am: toasted stale roll with butter and peanut butter; 11am: glass of apple juice; 1.30pm: two slices of reheated Domino's veggie pizza; 4.30-5.30pm: assorted biscuits (in total I believe 7 - snacking, v. bad.); 8pm: sweet and sour pork with rice and peas, rest of bar of Divine Milk Chocolate.

And so to bed. Fare thee well xxx