I shouldn't be writing this...

The mighty storms of October have commenced! Sweeping trees surround us on top of University Hill.

Although I made a holy vow not to spend any time on this ridiculously time-consuming diary today, I couldn't resist telling you one or two things that just happened. So, over an excitingly new sandwich of bacon, lettuce, mustard and West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce (no sambal here...) and Radiohead's Kid A (which has the amazing quality of sounding depressed when you're depressed, but cheerful when you're cheery), here we go:

I came this close to signing up for a job in the ground crew of a tourist ballooning company that flies over Swiss, France, Czechia and Turkey between May and October next year (didn't know what to do with my life, did I? Next moment the answer flies by.) but I had to be disappointed: I needed a driver's license, and there's no way in the world I'm getting that in between February and May...

I met two UCnians, one of whom I had already met (as she studies sociology here). But the other, part of UC's "humanities assistence committee" or something like that, came as a surprise. Apparently she is playing hooky to travel around in the UK with her mum a bit, which sounds like a very good idea.

Then, a seminar (HIH1240 - Middle Ages, once again) has given me some more self-confidence about my academic possibilites/capacities/choices/whatever again. (Dr Hamilton said that if I had the chance to study Middle Ages in Utrecht, I should definitely do so and not come back to the UK. Also, she praised Mosterd and Carien van Rhijn. Isn't it a small world? And isn't it nice to get some affirmation (that you're heading in the right direction, I mean) once in a while?

Anyway, last and most urgent point: Mark, come here immediately! On Thursday they have a lecture entitled "Why the hell do we crazy British still celebrate Trafalgar?" or something along those lines. If I find the time, I will go and take notes for you. While copying its date from the notification on a door in the dep. of history, some professor walked by and remarked that it would definitely be worth the trouble. Would he be the famous Michael Duffy (??)in person?

Now I must really get back to my reading of the Rev. Henry Woollcombe's 1863 sermon on fallen women - preached in our own Holy Trinity Church of Exeter!