It’s been a pretty good week on the whole. Let’s try and tell a tale with photos.

First thing to arrive through the door. Squee! Indiepop 09 mix from Rough Trade. I don’t have a working CD drive at the moment (silly Macbook) so it’s on rotation in the old boombox. It’s really really good.

There’s the tracklist. The highlight for me was Hopelessly Wasted by Shrag, followed closely by The Punks Are Writing Love Songs by Tullycraft (which has a nearly identical opening riff to Mandy by Jonas Brothers…) and (naturally) You!Me!Dancing! by Los Campesinos!

Then the thing I was most excited about. Cooking Cleaning and Flower Arranging by Manic Street Preachers. Limited to 300 copies. And then….

Garrr, red ink marks. There’s been a lot of problems with them according to the forums - mostly bad packaging and red ink. Have emailed Rough Trade to see if I can get a replacement, although I’m sure they will sell out by the time they get back to me.

After my Decision Maths exam (which was surprisingly…enjoyable?) I went for a drive with my friend from Durham University before he goes back. He taught me life lessons; like the value of university pre-lashes on the wallet, what to drink/what not to drink and most importantly, raiding Sainsbury’s for clearance CDs  = good stuff. [Top one is a David Gray album]. The one of the left is making my ears bleed right now, although getting home and putting on ‘Paris to Berlin’ was pretty priceless. I don’t he’ll ever let me in his car again because he bought me cookies and they were crunchy and I got crumbs everywhere. He also lost a £2 bet because he thought I didn’t know the company of my local petrol station. Dork.

Then…as if life couldn’t get any better…

Yay! Foreign Policy Magazine! I must’ve paid for the subscription months ago (and by I, I mean using my father’s funds) and it’s finally came. Half way through reading it at the moment. Has thrown a spanner in the works in the whole revision weekend shebang. Speaking of which…

My desk has seen better days…

The journal has taken away any need to write personal bullshit. In a nutshell, life events have been good but emotions haven’t. “Lashed” out (in the lightest possible way) at Baldy, luckily he’ll never hold anything against me. Thank the world for great friends. And eating McDonalds and playing music before exams together, and then turning up late. We are silly.

…and bought a new lens. I missed zoom so much. It was a significant chunk of money, in fact, nearly as much as the body and the kit lens together. It’s an investment. But that’s the last time I’m spending any money on my SLR for a year at least. I stopped Flickring a while ago and I don’t plan to publish any of my photos any time soon, not that I prolifically take them, but I don’t wish to share any recent pieces of “creativity” with the world.

I’ve also finally added a “content” page of old essays (currently consisting of two; I need to source my handwritten ones that got me full marks…) and the about page; which actually got updated a while ago, and I’ll probably update it yet again soon.

Life is finally getting a bit more interesting; spending more of my free time in the centre with good friends instead of buried in a pile of books. That being said, I plan to do a post consisting of the books I’ve been reading/studying, for knowledge is good. I like knowledge. I’m more positive, optimistic and confident than I have been for the last few months. Finally got two As in Economics essays, I’ve been getting B’s since the start and it’s the only subject I need an A in this year to get me into university. So it gets the majority of my time. Oh and LSE still aren’t talking to me, but I’ve pretty much settled I will be just as happy going to York, or any other of my choices. Except Exeter, they don’t deserve me.