World Cup Final
Soccer World Cup final tonight, between Brazil and Germany - although you really would have had to have been living under a rock not to know that one. Possibly the most popular sporting event on the planet (it's a bit debatable between it and the Olympics), the World Cup really seems to have reached to every little corner of the globe. I think that it's been a pretty good tournament - although slightly disappointing that there haven't been as many big match-ups between the major teams as I remember from the previous world cup in France. Not having France, Portugal and Argentina pass through the first round was a bit sad, and Holland not even being there did take a little bit away from the tournament. However, the surprises of Korea, Turkey, Senegal and others meant that this tournament has been incredibly exciting to watch. I think after tonight, everyone just won't be able to wait until 2006 in Germany.

Nats is still feeling pretty crappy - not getting a good night's sleep and relying on painkillers has become the norm lately. It's a bit worrying since it has been nearly a week since the operation and you would have expected things to get a bit better by now.

Life is rather confusing at the moment, everything happening at once last week has meant that my life has changed quite a lot. Having Nats in bed and feeling crappy all the time is fairly depressing, while on the up side I don't have to worry about my exams anymore. Come to think of it - I never really worried about my exams as much as I should have. I hope that doesn't mean that my marks are going to be too bad, I've kind of dropped my expectations a bit so hopefully I won't be too disappointed and angry at myself. Funnily enough, the only time I've ever been disappointed and angry about my marks was in Bursary, and that was probably the year that I got the best marks ever in my life. I think that I just had way too high expectations. Typical me, it doesn't really matter what the marks I get are, it's how they compare to my expectations that matters - so hopefully if I lower my expectations I might be pleasantly surprised.

Reading Back
Hey, it's 12:28am so I can write tomorrow's news. Actually it's today now so all I'm really doing is confusing myself. I've been reading through my entire news page over the last year and a half nearly, I thought that I had better since my younger sister (can't really call her my little sister anymore at 16!) read the whole thing last night - and began quizzing me on things that I had written about a year ago. I guess altogether my news page has been a journey, and I know that I have learned quite a bit about myself through it. Hopefully people have learned quite a bit about me through reading my site.

Wooohooo... it's the weekend (by half an hour), and also near the end of the month which means that I'm going to have to go through and switch all my news from this month to another page, and the come up with a blank page for July. July! Man this year has gone by really really quickly. I guess we're pretty close to halfway through the year, the shortest day has just passed so the days are getting longer now - thank goodness as I just can't stand it being dark at 5pm.

Hopefully by Monday Nats will be feeling a bit better, at the moment her throat is rather nasty, all bruised and still bleeding slightly in some places. She's also snoring pretty badly! (Sorry baby... just listening to it at the moment.

On Holiday!
So I guess that I'm on holiday now - worked yesterday for the first time in a while - it was good to get back to work in some ways although it seemed as though something had changed at work. Interestingly enough I was getting the same feeling that I got last year when we had the same store manager that's at Queen St. now, the "let's be really suspicious of all the crew people and treat them like shit" feeling. But that's strange, because whenever I've talked to the store manager, she's been really kind and joking, and has seemed fairly friendly to everyone else that I've seen her talk to - so maybe it's just me, and maybe just because I've had a while off and I wasn't exactly used to the McDonald's way of doing things.

Nats is slowly on the mend I think, although she doesn't really seem to think so, and the pain is still about as bad as it was on Tuesday when she had her tonsils removed. She's been given the strongest painkillers they can find, and then they're only just working. Hopefully a nice, relaxing weekend will make things better - a nice sleep-in, and the day in bed. Ahhhh.... that sounds like a good way to spend Saturday...

The Good and the Bad
The good news or the bad news first? I guess I'll be positive and give out the good news: my exams are finished! Although it didn't go that great today, it's a relief to get them out of the way, as there's heaps of other stuff that I need to be focusing on at the moment.

For the bad news, Nats isn't really feeling any better, although she is home and out of hospital - my poor baby must have had a reaction to the anaesthetic, and is feeling rather terrible. Hope that you feel better in the morning.

So Germany beat Korea in the first of the semi-finals last night. I did expect that to happen, but I must give the Koreans a bit more credit than I did in yesterday's news entry. They are a very good team, and even if a few marginal calls went there way in the previous rounds - on merit they definately weren't outplayed by the Germans. Funnily enough, that's not unusual as the USA outplayed the Germans in the quarter finals, yet Germany still won the match 1-0. They say it's always a sign of a good team when they can be outplayed yet still win, kinda like Tiger Woods who has a bad day and yet still wins the US open!

It's All Happening
It's all happening at the moment - with the baby being born, Nats going into hospital herself today to have her tonsils removed, and me having my exam tomorrow. Poor Nats has to stay the night, bloody tonsils! Oh well, there should be no more problems with them from now on because they're not there anymore!

At last, this time tomorrow I will no longer have to worry about exams - my economic geography exam will be over and done with, and although I don't think that I know it as well as I did for the Environmental Geography paper, I think that's because they haven't given us as good clues about what the exam is going to be on - so hopefully the essay answers won't have to be quite so specific. I kinda figured that anyway, because the paper has been about broad topics such as commodity chains and the shift from fordism to post-fordism. I know the basics pretty well, so I should be sweet.

First of the world cup semi-finals tonight, although unfortunately it's far too late for me to watch as I have to wake up early tomorrow morning to go to my exam. All I can really hope for is a good, fair match - as the world cup has the potential to be ruined by the controversy surrounding the defeats of Spain and Italy by South Korea. I expect Germany to cruise past them, as they have a much superior team, but then again I also expected both Italy and Spain to easily beat the Koreans so you never know.

Alexandra Rose
Overnight there has been a new addition to the family. At roughly 4am this morning Nats' auntie Delwyn gave birth to Alexandra Rose Campi. Sorry to sound all official and all, like one of those notices they have in the newspaper. We all really expected her to come a bit sooner, but still she had a week to go until full time so it's pretty good. Congratulations to everyone....

Well, I have about three days left of semester, probably the best way to put things - in other words I have an exam in three days time, well two days really now. At least after that it'll be over and I'll be able to relax a little bit. Well, mentally at least because I am going to be working fulltime.

Exams!!
In the middle of my exams, had Philosophy yesterday which I think went OK. Well it could have been better, but not because the questions were anything unexpected - but more that the subject hadn't really interested me altogether that much and I hadn't really done that much reading for it.

Tomorrow I have environmental geography, which is GOOD. Of all my papers this semester, this is the one that is probably 'me' - if you know what I mean. It's all based around Sustainable Development, which is the 'big hope' of the future - to solve the environmental problems we face as well as reducing poverty. Interesting stuff, as I plan to talk about it in terms of the Auckland Regional Growth Forum, the history of forestry in New Zealand, and dam development internationally. Should be OK, I just wonder whether I should have a back-up topic just in case the essay questions are a bit strange.

Poor Nats is going into hospital next week to have her tonsils removed. I'd have to say that from what heard you've gotta have guts. I could just imagine myself saying "that just sounds too bad.... never mind". Just a bloody pain that the operation's a day before my last exam. So this time next week I'll be completetly finished with my exams - what a relief, and back working fulltime at Maccas. At least I'll earn some money, which I REALLY need at the moment!

Happy Birthday
Nats is now 18, happy birthday for Sunday! Now we can all go out and get smashed (legally) and go to R18 movies and everything like that. Hmmmmmmmm...... not that we've ever really wanted to do that kinda stuff at all. It always seems like a big deal when you turn 18, and I guess in some ways it is as you are officially an adult. But really, it's just another day in your life and I don't think anyone really "feels" older the day they turn 18, it's a gradual thing.

Exams!!!!! Yeah I know that by now I really should have got used to exams - as this is like my 14th university exam. But they are still pretty stressful, and I have one tomorrow and then another one on Friday. It's the one tomorrow that's really annoying me, as Philosophy of the Mind has hardly been the most interesting paper that I've ever taken. It's probably going to turn out to be my worst ever mark at university which is also a bit of a disincentive for me. At least I'm going to pass.....

Another early start this morning, I'm actually getting quite used to waking up at 6am now (that's actually pretty late for us), as Nats is always starting work at 6:30. It has meant that I've been able to get into university while it's still reasonably quiet and find a seat in the library (it's actually a fairly difficult task at this time of the year). And since I'm probably going to be working mornings during the holidays, and hopefully every day so that I can pay my mounting bills I had better get used to these early mornings.

My studies for environmental geography have actually been quite interesting - which is really good since usually it's a bit of a grind studying for my exams. Yesterday I focused upon the Auckland Regional Growth Forum, as well as a history of forestry in New Zealand. It was good to do something that I can see the effects of - and since I've always been interested in Auckland's growth and how the city is layed out etc. it was really interesting to find out where it's likely to be headed in the future. I could see myself working with them in the future to analyse and update the growth strategy. I must also say that I agreed with most of the plans they had, as they didn't get all ideological about creating either a 'compact city' or greenfield development, but instead took bits and pieces from all the different theories and seem to have applied it to the Auckland scenario in particular. So I guess in the future you should look out for high density housing around train lines as well as in major suburbs, along with some urban sprawl near Albany, Orewa and East Tamaki.

It's my Mum's birthday today - so HAPPY BIRTHDAY (not that you ever read this....lol!)

That Not-Studying Guilty Feeling
It's been nearly a week since my last update - the result of me being too bloody poor to afford to spend any money on the internet while I'm at university, and the fact that I've hardly been at university that much over the past week as my lectures are finished and I've been working during the day.

.... Which has meant bloody 5:20am wake-up calls for me and Nats! Luckily tomorrow there is no work (just a hospital appointment!), so we get to sleep in at least for a little bit longer than normal.

The reason I don't have any lectures is because I've got exams coming up instead. Yes, it's come to that time of the year again when all hell breaks loose and you end up going absolutely insane with studying for university exams. Fortunately I only have three, and one of them is only worth 40% of that paper's total - my history paper is all finished and I'm about 100% sure that I'm going to get a B+ for that paper as that's what I've got for every single essay.

Can't wait for exams to finish - for the first time since February I won't have the guilty feeling that I really should be studying rather than doing what I'm actually up to (which normally isn't studying....) I have to admit that I've been fairly good this semester when it has come down to handling the stress, I haven't let it catch up with me and it's been manageable.

The Vampires
I gave blood yesterday, yes that was very good of me to do such a thing. And it bloody hurt when they put the needle in! At least things weren't as bad for me as they were for Nats though, the nurse couldn't find her vein and had to keep moving the needle around - I just cringe at the thought of it. But I did rather well, gave the full amount of blood and didn't faint as I made sure I had lots and lots of stuff to drink just before I started.

Exams are looming closer and closer, my first one is Wednesday of the week after next, less than two weeks away. I know that seems like a long way away at the moment, but I bet it will seem like this time passes so quickly that I'll be writing in my news page in about a week that it seemed so long ago, and now my exams are looming incredibly soon. I have to sort out which exam I have when, at the moment I know that I have one on the 19th, 21st and 26th - I'm just not sure which one is when.

One More Lecture
Had my parents over for dinner last night, things went pretty well even though I did help with the cooking (mustn't have stuffed things up too much, everyone's still alive!) It meant that I didn't get that much sleep last night as we were up early this morning, but you know it's probably good practice for next week when I am working 7-2 from Monday to Thursday. Bloody early start for me, but I guess the good thing is that at least I'm getting some pretty good hours, and at the moment that's what I really really need!

I've only got one more lecture to go for this semester, then my three exams, but it seems to have gone by pretty quickly. It's been an OK semester university wise, I probably haven't done that great in my papers but I'll still pass them easily and I still should be able to do well in my geography papers, which is most important.

10 days until Nats' eighteenth birthday. That will be pretty cool in some ways, as if we want to go to a bar or nightclub (although it's not really my thing), we'll be able to. Means that there's going to be less money around, which is a scary thought as we're struggling at the moment to meet all our costs - but I'm sure that things will work out someway or another.

Winter's here... Whoopdedoo
Welcome to a new month, and welcome to bloody winter! Hmm.... what looms for me in June? Well I have exams, holidays and Nats' auntie is almost 100% certain to have her baby in this month. Well it looks like quite an interesting month, hopefully a bit better than 'killer month' May. With all its essays, May was very very busy, I guess with exams I can't really expect June to be that much quieter but we shall see.

Worked 9-6 yesterday, which was rather tiring but pretty good, as I feel that the managers at Queen St. are showing more faith in me than ever before. I guess in some ways being on production meant that I had a pretty easy day as I didn't have to cook that much, but in other ways production is the hardest station because if you stuff up then everything is gone.

Last week of lectures for me this semester, seems strange as March 4th doesn't really seem that long ago in some ways - but in other ways it has been a while. It was also my first day working at Queen St. McDonald's and was just a couple of days before Nats started work at Starbucks. And it does seem that we've been working at these places for quite some time.....

Football World Cup
The Football World Cup starts tomorrow in South Korea and Japan, although I haven't really followed soccer this year as much as I have previously, it will be interesting as soccer is one of the few sports where there are a lot of countries that are very good at it. Unlike the rugby world cup - where realistically only about 4 or 5 countries are ever going to win it or the cricket world cup which is fairly similar, in soccer you never really know who's going to win. I mean when you have a team that made the semi-finals last time around (ie. Holland) and aren't even there this time, you know that you have a pretty competitive competition. I guess that I'll find a good website somewhere so that I can keep up to date with everything - I remember in 98 Soccernet was about the best site around on the world cup, but that's been taken over by EPSN so it'll be interesting what pops up.

Caught the bus to town in the middle of the rush hour today for the first time in ages, as Nats started work at 8 o'clock. Traffic wasn't too bad, as per usual, once you're actually on the motorway to get on the harbour bridge - it's just a slow ride along Onewa Road in order to get there. Luckily we live close to the last bus stop before you get on the harbour bridge so it's never too long.

I have to write an essay by the end of today on something to do with Southeast Asian nationalism. Hopefully it won't take me too long, as I have work tomorrow and really don't want to have to be finishing it off in a mad rush before my deadline of starting work at midday.

Auckland's Weather
Damn Auckland weather, one second it's absolutely pouring down with rain and the next minute it's nice and sunny so you think that it's a good time to go out. And then as soon as you do go out it decides to pour down again. It was interesting yesterday though, because we had a thunder storm for the first time in ages.... lightning and all which was kinda exciting. I always remember being at primary school and watching the thunder storms during lunch time as we played some really really old game on the crappy computers we had back then. The other thing I always think about during a thunder storm is the really really scary one that happened when I was on school camp in about standard three I think, well it had been raining pretty much steadily throughout the week, so this must have been about the Tuesday or Wednesday night I think. Anyway, the thunder started and it just kept on going, getting louder and louder and louder. Well my best friend Nicholas needed to go outside, and just as he opened the door there was a massive flash of lightning which hit the middle of the field just outside the dormitories we were sleeping in. I don't know who got the bigger fright, him from seeing the lightning or me from seeing his reaction. But anyway, it must have been a pretty big thing for me if I can still remember it over 10 years later. (Damn I feel old saying that!)

Seven essays down and only the one to go now. As well as a little geography lab exercise which shouldn't take me too long at all, I'll be finished the internal assessment part of my course, which will include one paper entirely, 60% of my philosophy paper and 40% of my two geography papers. It's been one hell of a semester, but I think that I'm through the worst of it, next semester seems like it will be a bit easier as I am doing three papers and not four - so everything should be slightly less stressful. Then at the end of that I'm going to have a degree..... scary!

I watched Third Watch with Nats last night, about September 11th - I thought that it was pretty well done, everyone knew what they were talking about although no shots of the planes or anything else like that were ever shown. I guess since it has been about eight months since September 11th, it's interesting to see how it has really 'changed' the world. I know that people said at the time things would never be the same again, but has that really happened? Maybe in the states is has for sure, and even in countries like Australia who have put aside a greater amount of money than ever before, for defence, it has made a big difference. The 'war' against the Taleban seemed to be about as one-sided as tanks vs. spears, and was over pretty quickly. I guess one way of thinking about it is, that maybe everything hasn't changed but it's still not the same as it was - maybe it never will be.

Essays
I've been 20 for a month as of today, kinda weird thinking about it that way as it does seem like a while in some ways but not that long in others. I guess time flies at the moment, although with exams looming not too far away I'm not really sure whether I'm that pleased about it doing so!

Had to wake up really early this morning, although it's not such a bad thing because (hurray!) I'm not working tonight. Nats started work at 6:30am so I got a lift with her into town which was good as my bus card has run out for last week, and it meant that I could have a pretty relaxing start to the day lounging about on the Starbucks couch reading a bit of the newspaper, and then doing stuff on my essay..... now talking about that essay...

It's strange how essays develop throughout my time at university. I remember last year having to write a 2,000 word essay for human geography, which was at that point the longest ever essay I had had to write for university. Well, I was rather used to writing little 1,500 word things so when I got to about 1,500 words I kinda ran out of things to say. I had sub-consciously angled my essay so that I could say what I wanted in about the same number of words to what I was used to. Now jumping foward to this year, and I have to write a 1,500 word Philosophy essay (really need it done in the next hour and a half, but I'm nearly there), and I can't seem to keep myself to anywhere close to 1,500 words. In about two hours I have managed to write nearly 1300 words, and I still think that I'm only really getting started and that there's quite a lot more to my argument that needs to be said. I guess it's just the way that you write things.

On a more interesting note, Nats' aunty is due to have a baby pretty soon, so there will be another addition to the extended family. Here's hoping that everything goes well, and it'll be pretty cool having a little baby around the place - the last one I really remember was my sister Ella, and she was born when I was three and a half!

Power Cut
We had a power cut today, for the first time that I can really remember for years. Bloody sucked actually since we were in the middle of watching a DVD (Cats and Dogs - very funny).

It's been so fucking cold lately, my hands and feet feel kind of numb and like they're going to fall off. I now realise why I really hate winter, cos I'm a skinny little thing I always feel the cold pretty badly and end up freezing my ass off - bring back summer!

It sucks how places where you work can go from being your best friend to dumping you and not giving a damn. At the moment, it seems like Starbucks' sales are down as it's winter, so nobody's getting the hours that they need. This sucks for Nats, as she was employed on the basis that she would be a fulltime worker, and now she's getting barely 20 hours a week.

The Knowledge Argument
Well I managed to finish my reaserch project, with a huge 20 minutes to spare. I know that I really shouldn't leave things so close next time, but oh well. It was like 15 pages long including all the references and a couple of pages of diagrams. But I think that it was a pretty good essay thing, not the best ever but probably not too bad considering I did end up writing it under quite a bit of pressure.

Now I've got to write a Philosophy essay by Monday about The Knowledge Argument. It seems as though The Knowledge Argument, which is an argument against Functionalism and Physicalism, interestingly enough as that's basically what we've got to in terms of the one 'right' theory by elimination of all the other theories. Well, basically physicalism says that everything is physical, so that if you know everything physical then you know everything there is to know. Functionalism says that the mental states we have, are what is known as "functional states", and that they are a combination of inputs, outputs and internal processes that cannot function by themselves, but only as a whole system.

But anyway, The Knowledge Argument supposes that there's this chick called Mary (I wonder why they chose a chick called Mary, bloody Philosophers don't get out enough probably) who knows all there is to know about physical stuff. She knows all the maths that we could possibly ever know, she knows all about the human brain and the neurophysiological bullshit that goes on inside our heads. BUT, she has lived her entire life inside a room which is completely black and white, all the books she has read to acquire her immense knowledge have been solely black and white, and similarly the TV that she watches is black and white. Now suppose we let her out of this room (aren't we nice.....) and she sees red for the first time, now does this experience of red for the first time mean that she's learnt something? Has she learned what it is like to experience red? And is this a realistic learning process? Common sense says that she has learnt something, and that if she has then she mustn't have known everything before she got out of the room, but since she knew everything physical before she got let out of the room there must be other non-physical stuff that she didn't know about. Here's when we all say "holy shit! Physicalism is wrong... wooooohooooo!!!"

There are heaps of replies to this situation, although as yet I haven't found one that's really any good - although possibly the best way for a physicalist to reply to the situation is by attacking the actual situation. I think that it might be impossible for Mary to know everything physical in the world without knowing what red looks like, so therefore the whole situation is wrong because she doesn't know everything physical so she can therefore learn something new physical which means that the experience was physical so physicalism isn't dead. (I think I wrote physical WAY too many times in that sentence.) It'll hopefully be quite an interesting essay to write, as maybe I'll finally understand this insane philosophy paper and hopefully be able to drag my marks back up.

Essays Coming Out Of My Ears
I'm making fairly good progress on my geography research assignment, so I thought that I would take a bit of time out to write in my news page for the day. It's my Dad's birthday today, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I've got essays coming out of my ears at the moment, in fact the assignment I'm doing at the moment has come down to the number of hours left before it's due. Well at the moment I have three hours left to go, and I have about another thousand words to write so I don't think that I'm too stuffed. It's nice when you get going on something and the words just start to flow, the problem is that I'm so used to writing essays, that I'm probably going to write this assignment like it was an essay - and apparentely it's not. Hmmmmm.......

Yay, no more working at nights for me until at least the holidays after my last exam, which is on June 26th. Sometimes it's just a bit too much, having a full day's university and then coming into work and doing a 7 hour shift which finishes at 11pm, then finally going home. I also always seem to wake Nats up which sucks, especially when she starts work at 6:30am the next morning. Well now hopefully I'll be working afternoons on Wednesdays and then Mornings on Fridays, so it shouldn't be too bad.

Rain
It's pissing down with rain at the moment, of course that just had to happen the day I didn't bring an umbrella or my jacket. So I'm here stuck in the library (which is probably a good thing, as I have a massive essay due tomorrow) until it stops raining - or I'm going to get fucking wet. Well, wetter than I am so far which is pretty soaked as I made my dash from the Engineering School over to the library. Grrrrrr.....

I can't believe they've made a Scooby Doo movie. I used to watch that cartoon when I was really little, and MAN did it freak the hell out of me! All those ghosts, vampires etc. etc. were probably a little bit too much for me, but for some reason I liked the show. I wonder how they would make it into a movie though.....

I had work last night for the first time in over a week, it was pretty normal I suppose - although the shift manager at the moment is utterly hopeless. I basically ran the kitchen the whole night: gave out all the breaks, organised the wash, as well as looking after the production bin the whole time and closing the grill. Time seemed to go really really slowly for some reason, and although it was probably my shortest ever shift at Queen St., only 5 hours long, it seemed to be even longer than my normal 7 hour shifts. Probably because I only had the one break.

My poor Nats ended up working 13 hours yesterday, after getting shit all sleep the night before. Oh well, the good thing is that she's got the day off today. Hope that you're sleeping!!

Had a strange Philosophy lecture today, it sort of made sense I guess. But as Philosophy has been like this whole semester, I kinda felt that I missed the bit of the lecture that made the whole thing relevant. Maybe on the last day of studying before my exam I'm finally going to actually 'get' the whole paper and it'll just all make sense (it has happened in the past you know!), or maybe I'll be destined to have kinda got what's been going on, but never really understood it fully. It was interesting to figure out that a person's life does have a finite amount of possibilities, as our perception means that we cannot tell the smallest differences of inputs and we can't tell the smallest differences in time. So theoretically you could make a huge book about all the possible inputs in a person's life, and therefore all the possible outputs. I think that's kind of what functionalism is all about, but don't quote me on it!

Party
Went to Nats' work party with her last night at the Dispensary Bar. It wasn't too bad, the drinks were rather expensive but what do you really expect at a bar - plus we did get vouchers for 3 free drinks. Also, Nats won a $30 music voucher for selling lots of Frappucinos. So it was pretty cool. I managed to get myself rather tipsy on 4 bottle of KGB lemonade, which probably just shows how little alcohol I've drunk lately. But it was good, because I didn't get to the "feeling sick" part of drunk, and I was still sort of in control of myself. As I said to Nats, I'm at the stage where I can still be serious, it's just much easier than usual not to be serious. Which is a nice feeling.

Back to earth today however, as Nats started work bloody early in the morning (poor thing), and I have had another pretty typical day of lectures. Interestingly, I'm not starting work until 5pm, instead of my usual 4pm - which means that I'll get one less break than usual but I will get paid for my whole shift as I don't get an unpaid half hour break.

Almost had a record number of hits on my site last week, of 81. I think that the record was 140 something back in June last year when I went on a mad spree of advertising my webpage in chat - but I'm pretty proud of how things have gone in the last week and hopefully the new people who have visited my site will come back again and again.

I have to write 2 essays in the next week, one of which is about 3,000 words long and is due in two days time. Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!! Oh well, I've done most of the research, just need to do a little bit more theoretical stuff. It's on the Breakfast Ceral Industry - not the most riveting of things to write a research report about, but I guess that it's something that shouldn't be too difficult. Then I have to write a Philosophy essay about something to do with Functionalism I think, Philosophy has been rather disappointing this semester considering last year it was probably one of the best papers I've ever done at university, I guess it's been a combination of factors such as the very nature of the paper, the fact that all the tutorial times clashed, the stupid idiot in the lecture who always comes up with the most inane things to say (such as "well.... I'd just like to complicate the situation - what if mathematics is not species-independent....") and so on.... Oh well, it's something that I should be able to pass OK, and by the end of this semester I'll be pretty close to finished my degree. I can just look forward to the last word of the last exam I write next semester - strangely enough it'll be like the last word of my degree. Kinda like when I finished my bursary physics exam - it was like "this is the last thing I'm ever going to write at school!" I guess it's not quite that big as I'll be back at uni the year after next to do my Masters in Geography - but you know what I mean!