You can always say that summer had its charm...

[title from The Cardigans - Sick and Tired]

I returned to 4th-year house in Universityland for the final time last week. I had to clear out the house so that we could give it back to the letting agent. The house had to be empty of our possessions and clean, and both emptying and cleaning took a lot of time and a lot of tea to get done. I can report that despite the huge numbers of cookies produced in our kitchen throughout the year, only one of them got dropped irretrievably behind the cooker. I can also report that fridges have little pots on the back of them. Any liquid mank collecting inside the fridge somehow makes its way into a mank-pot. Jo and I were left wondering whether emptying the mank-pot is a normal household task to be carried out periodically, or whether the mank-pot was expected to sit there gathering mank for the entire useful life of a fridge. Please send your suggestions on a postcard, with a stamped addressed envelope enclosed for a reply.

I was completely phased by the amount of stuff that turned up on my bedroom floor after my trip to 4th-year house. It turns out that I have a lot more stuff than fits in a room. So Uncle Val came to help tidy up, even if only to stop me going berserk in panic. I found it really helpful having someone else there. My instinct on finding something that doesn't have a 'home' yet is to leave it where it is and move on. But with someone else there, it's suddenly obvious that leaving most things just sitting on the floor doesn't really solve the problem I'm trying to solve. The actual solution (just to clear up any confusion) is to find a home for all your possessions or make a home for them if one doesn't already exist. In the end, I cleared out most of my drawers and cupboards, dispatched my kitchen things to the attic and my coin collection to the garage, and now everything fits. Hurrah!

Comfortingly, the laws of room-sorting were adhered to:
1) Some things were found that had been lost for years
2) Some things were lost that had been treasured for years
3) When dividing possessions into sensible categories to go into drawers, the amount of possessions in a single category is always slightly bigger than the drawer available
4) Some things that should be thrown out are retained for the next good clear-out in five years' time, even though they could probably go now. And you know exactly which ones they are and STILL won't throw them out
5) One item just crops up again and again. For me, it was photos. I had photos from different holidays over the last decade and it seems I had spread them evenly through all the drawer and cupboard space available. Now they have their own drawer. I am proud of my Organisation Skills
6) Some things appear that have never been in your room before. Where that pair of sunglasses appeared from I shall never know
7) You have more juggling balls, silly hats and T-shirts than you thought
8) There is something there that recalls ambitious plans that never came to fruition. This happened so often in the sorting procedure that it's not worth boring you with all the sordid details
9) It looks worse before it looks better
10) Having decided which drawers are for which objects, something extra-large turns up and spoils everything. And I don't mean Chris Moyles. I'm thinking of that logic puzzle that wants to be a Rubik's cube but just isn't good (or cubic) enough to manage it. It didn't fit in the drawer that was intended for 'games, puzzles and novelties' and destroyed the whole system
11) You give up at the end and have a 'random stuff' drawer just to clear the mess

Not posting means I have been existing more and not less

Hi, haven't written in a while, and you can tell because this post is going to come across all rambling and nonsensical, like some letters I write. I read letters like that back through, give up on understanding what I meant by them in the first place... and then send them anyway. Sorry if you have received any like that, or if you do receive any like that in the future.

Anyway, I didn't come on here to tell you about letters. After all, I am a bit busy and it's late at night. I started writing with the aim of telling you all why I haven't written much lately. Well, I have some news.

I'm a graduate! Graduated on Saturday in a wonderfully traditional ceremony and stupid clothes. It kind of feels like it set me free a bit. I don't want to leave Universityland, but the time came anyway. Before the end I had to pack in loads of experiences because it was my Last Opportunity, and now I can actually do things that are about the future and not the past. I hate planning the future, but sometimes you gotta do something and it's worse if you put it off.

So, I have been applying for jobs. My wonderful Aunt-person found me a summer job with a materials-based company. My temporary work won't allow me to use my materials knowledge too much, but still, it's nice to know that materials science will be all around me. AND, I have applied to lots of jobs, got further in some applications than others, but I feel like I'm actually making progress.

So life is hectic but good. I feel like some things are getting neglected such as tea research and blogging, but they will intensify again when the evils of future-planning have gone away

More about me and the environment

I am fiercely independent. If someone tells me to do something I get defensive; I don't automatically do the opposite, but I certainly have a good look at the options to see whether it would work to do something else. I want to be absolutely sure that I am my own person. And I do it obsessively. When someone says they can predict how I'll react to something or what I'll say, it throws me into a kind of panic and I don't know what to do. I cast about for new ways of being unpredictable. I don't want to be weird, but I certainly do want to decide things myself and I pride myself on having original ideas and new ways of doing things.

It's perhaps because of this that I am a man of short term obsessions. I have had my hatred of umbrellas, my love of cheese, my love of the cardigans, my love of tea, my obsession with cacti, and many more. When someone finds me out, or, worse, is more obsessed than me, it shocks me and I flee in panic!

But slightly contradictorily, I like to take up the same opinions as my Dad. You could probably say that the time when I was gaining all my background of opinions and way of thinking was a time when I listened a lot to my Dad. He was a Quaker, he was slightly anti-establishment, he was an environmentalist and a scientist. Everyone has beliefs and values that are unquestioned, and these are some things that are firmly ingrained in me.

A wonderful thing about university is that there are a lot of people with carefully considered opinions. I don't discuss life, the universe and everything too often, but certainly over a few years you get through most things. So you start to question your ingrained values. That's important to me, because then I get to be that little bit more independent in my thoughts.

I realised only recently that environmentalism was something that I should question too. My Dad died before everyone believed in global warming, so I can't just steal his ideas on that. It brings up lots of problems that he probably thought through but I just accepted.
What kind of world are we trying to save?
Do we want to stop seas from being filled with fertilisers that kill off local fish populations?
Do we mind that a land filled with people, our houses, infrastructure and agriculture is unnatural?
Is the destruction of sea habitat somehow more important or more avoidable than the destruction of habitats on land?
Is biodiversity very very important? It's not so natural either. After all, if you leave land to do its own thing, nettles could cover it and squeeze out anything else. Or bracken in the highlands.
If we will be able to survive the problems of global warming, is that enough?
In terms of importance, if you give a human life a value of 10, what's the value of a frog?
If there is a huge swarm of insects is it more justified to kill them rather than a lone bug?
Can we even define the state of the Earth environmentally?

I'm not planning on abandoning my environmental views, because I think they are important. But it's something to think about, because unquestioned views are dangerous no matter who you are.

Excuses excuses...

In my department at university they set everyone exams to work out which grades to give. But to make sure that everyone has the right grade, they give some people a viva (oral exam). They interview a few people to work out the quality of the year as a whole and also some people who are near grade boundaries so they can decide which side of the boundary to put you.

I figure I need to talk like someone who tried his best and has excellent knowledge but somehow didn't show it in the exams. And that got me thinking about excuses I could use.

1) We went to the tea shop after each exam and so I was really distracted thinking which tea to have.
2) I have been in a state of worry and tension because the fridge taunts me with noises that I can't respond to. And it does that really loudly and at me, even if there are other people in the room.
3) I have been in a state of worry and tension because some people managed to get a balloon tangled in the telegraph wires near our house back in spring and it bothered me. I moaned incessantly to my housemates about the fluttering of them in the wind, the problems of littering and how they were in my field of view when I worked







Until eventually, a man from BT came to get them down (right hand picture)












4) I understand everything, there was just too much to learn
5) I'm a slow eater and I shouldn't be persecuted for it.
6) My Gran died
7) I was troubled about the lecturer I mentioned here and couldn't possibly work
8) Living with girls clouded my brain
9) My shoelace kept coming undone because it was in need of repair
10) I spent too much time writing silly blogs like this instead of revising

Anyway, with the viva in only a few hours, I'd better do some work...

Entropy and Glasses

Having spent much of the last few weeks concentrating non-stop on exams, I have learned to appreciate this subject a little more. So, as a celebration of finishing yesterday, I wanted to tell you all why it's quite so cool.

The two most important statements in physics are Second Laws. Newton's Second Law of Motion states "Rate of change of momentum is proportional to the force producing it". This leads to the equation F=ma. That's pretty cool, almost as cool as the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that Entropy Always Increases.

Entropy is disorder. If atoms are in a mess, entropy is high. Entropy means that when you add a nice square lump of sugar into tea, it will stop being nice and square and orderly, and spread its atoms all through the tea by dissolving (making your tea taste all sweet and gross). Entropy also means that if you heat up your room, the heat spreads out of the windows, doors and through the walls, and in the end your room is almost as cold as it ever was. Hot things have high entropy, because the atoms jiggle a lot and swap places and move around. And there's no way that they will stay in a nice ordered way like that. There is order involved in having all the heat in one place (your room), and it's much more disordered to share it out randomly (everywhere else), hence your room getting cold.

This law has never been proven wrong. If something creates order in one place, you will create that much disorder (and probably some more) in another place to compensate. Entropy always increases. We are doomed to become disordered.

The law leads to an equation that goes like this:
G = H - TS
This is one of the most useful equations ever. The second law of thermodynamics says entropy must go up. This equation does the same thing. G is called a free energy and in all processes, free energy G must go down. G is related to entropy of the universe somehow. S is the entropy of what you're looking at. If you line up a load of atoms in a row, then entropy of those atoms, S, goes down. But although you'd think that wouldn't be allowed from our law, it is, because the entropy of the whole universe could still go up, even if the entropy of this little bit goes down.

It happens all the time. You freeze some water to make an ice cube, and it has quite a low entropy. But freezing gives out heat. And it heats up the rest of the universe, so the rest of the universe has a higher entropy. This process of giving out heat (or even taking heat in) is explained in H. H is called the enthalpy. Giving out heat gives H a minus sign, and taking in heat gives H a positive value. The other letter in this equation is T, for Temperature.

Now, imagine that you have a load of atoms just sitting around. You decide to cool them down until the temperature, T, is zero. Absolute zero. It's minus 270-odd degrees C. Now, according to the equation, G = H - TS. If T is zero, then T * S = 0, no matter what S is. So G will try to get to a minimum value, and the only way it can do that is by lining up all the atoms so that H is as low as possible. From the paragraph above, we see that we need to find a way of giving out as much heat as possible, since this makes H as low as possible and so makes G as low as possible.

For any pair of atoms, you can work out what energy there is between them. They interact in some way, and have an energy. If there is more energy available than they need to interact, they give it out as heat. We can make a guess that there will be some optimal distance between the atoms that will make them give out the maximum amount of heat.

If you have a load of atoms at a really low temperature, they will all move to that distance away from each other, because that gives the lowest H and therefore the lowest G. That's what a crystal structure is. It's an ordered layout of atoms. Most solids have a nice ordered layout of atoms.

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Just let me make it clear... the entropy of this crystal is very low, but in making a low entropy system, the rest of the universe is getting hotter, and entropy is increasing. So from the second law of thermodynamics we can work out that crystals are the most stable structure of anything if you get cold enough.

Glass has atoms that are all over the place though. And cooling glass down to absolute zero won't change that. That goes precisely against what I have been saying. Glass should not exist. It is unstable, according to the second law of thermodynamics, which is NEVER wrong. In fact it CAN exist, but only exist because at low temperatures, atoms don't have enough energy to move around, so when they try to arrange themselves into a crystal structure as they cool, they can't arrange themselves quickly enough so a disordered structure is left over.

The fact that science can describe so much using the law "Entropy always increases" (and I've only just scratched the surface of one area), and the things it predicts are correct is the reason why I love science. It's a triumph of logic, and just so, so powerful. That's why I'm sad I won't go to any more undergraduate lectures about it.

End of university

I seem to have finished all the work and exams for my degree. I'm not sure what to think of it. Results aren't out yet, maybe I'll know what to think of it then

not-so-grinny guy

I'm angry like I haven't been in ages. I spent all day yesterday filling in an application form for a job. I mean, I really really hate applying for jobs and that kind of future planning, but I finally did it, and I finished it at about midnight. I thought it would be sensible to leave it until the morning to proof-read it rather than send it off at midnight straight away, so I saved the on-line form and left it.

Now it's GONE! I woke up this morning panicking about my exams, but I thought, at least I have done a job application so I can concentrate on exam work for a few days at least. But NO. It's disappeared. Currently I want to throw something, maybe the computer, but I don't think it is really the computer's fault. It's that bloody website. AAAaaaargh. I can't afford another day on it now, but I also can't afford to wait any longer to apply for jobs because come the summer I'll be living at home getting in the way and being stressed. AAAaaargh! Shit, what a crap start to the day

One of those grumpy, how-I'm-feeling-today posts

"There'll be rain on our wedding day
Rotting roses in my bouquet
There'll be rain on our wedding day
Grey be the sky
Too late to cry"
Slow - The Cardigans

I feel a bit grumpy at the moment, although not in an angry way. It's as if I am suppressing something, so I feel slightly agitated and devoid of whichever emotions I'm supposed to be feeling.

I guess a lot has happened recently:
At university, I had my last lectures of my undergraduate time although I still have a few seminars and lots of work to do next term. I am sad not to have any more lectures because I enjoy them, but I'm not sure how much I will miss them and the opportunity they give to learn some quite important and difficult things relatively easily (more easily than reading, for example).

Also at university, I handed in my bigass final year project. I'm glad to have handed the project in, but I made the mistake of re-reading it after handing it in, and spotting all the ways I could have improved it. Nevertheless I'm not too unhappy with it, but now it is gone I have to look forward to the exams in June and think about time after June too. Revision and job-hunting are two activities I REALLY don't enjoy doing, so the reality of my post-project time has not lived up to expectations.

On top of that, my gran died. She was a lovely old lady. Her husband (my grandfather) died before I was born, and her son (my Dad) in 2000. But she put up with these things amazingly, particularly as she was living alone. She was old-fashioned, intelligent and dignified. Well, she was, but her health had been declining steadily over the past few years, starting with her eyesight going as a result of diabetes and ending in a nursing home she had only recently moved into. She did not show people her feelings much, but that meant that getting a glimpse of them was a special occasion that made you feel special. I don't know how much I will miss her, but I'm sure there will be times when I miss her a lot or would have liked to talk to her or ask her something. It will be odd not to see her at Christmas, or think of her going on holiday to Wales every summer.

Talking about this is probably what I need to do, but as always, finding the right person is difficult. Which is why I end up writing a moody blog post like this.

The story of how this term was not like the others

For the first three years in this place, things got better and better, and then this term came, and things weren't quite as good again. I suspected it might happen, with all the people leaving who I talked about in this blog at the end of last term. To that, I can now add that I have spoken from time to time with all of that list except Kaleen and Dave. But I speak less to Sonia, Richard, Chris and Thomas than before too, and moving apart from so many friends at once is a bit painful.

A few years ago I would have said I don't need to tell someone everything. Who needs a best friend? But I often think that I would like to tell someone something I think of, but then can't think of the best person to tell and who would really understand what I am saying.

It took me until about the 7th week of term and a huge work crisis to click myself out of feeling all sorry for myself, and I can blog it now because I am feeling better, and I don't trust myself to write sense unless I am feeling good and rational.

Living in a house has been great though, and the housemates are wonderful. I can quite happily open up to lots of people and say what I think, and the people in the house are great! There is tea practically on tap, and although most people are in bed at a sensible hour there is inevitably someone who wants a long chat at midnight and that is wonderful! I really do feel a lot closer to these people than I have done since the first year, when we met up really often to cook together and things - almost like now! The more I get to know them all, the more wonderful it is.

So is a best friend really necessary? I haven't decided. I'll tell you when I'm eighty years old and I have more experience of the world and how it works.

Bonfire Night

I have been in university for several years now and yet this year was the first year I went to the main city firework display on bonfire night. I love bonfire night and it was a bit strange that I had not been before. When I left the house though, I realised that I didn't want to be a student on bonfire night. For me, bonfire night has always been and will always be a family occasion. Bonfires are something that I have come to associate with my Dad. It was a regular occurrence to come home after school to find the house locked and Dad at the bottom of the garden adding freshly trimmed branches to a smouldering fire. Having got over my frustration at being locked out, I would put on some wellies and help put wood on the fire, enjoying the smell of the smoke and the warmth of the fire. My hands and arms stung from scratches off the wood, my eyes stung from the smoke and my toes ached from the cold. Stand too close and you'd get smoke and ash all over you, stand to far away and you'd freeze. I hate the connotations with the dark green coloured area of any local supermarket when I say this, but it was a wonderfully organic experience.

I remember bonfire nights clearly too. One year we had it in our own garden with some kids who my Dad was tutor to at school. The fireworks were cheap and probably a bit damp, so they didn't work too well, but it just made it more exciting when a roman candle actually worked for a while!
A different time we went to a quaker's house, where there was a massive bonfire. We were enjoying some food, chatting, staring at the fire. As I stood there, my side nearest the fire prickled with the heat, while the other was numb with cold.
One time a family who we knew with kids called Kim and Becky hosted a bonfire night celebration. I remember the paths round the garden being lit with candles, bobbing for apples, going inside for a paper plate with some buffet food, and of course the huge bonfire and fireworks.
One year we went to a bonfire at the school where my Dad taught, and tried to make out the faces of the school children who I knew, even though they were up to ten years older than me, in the flickering light.
Probably the earliest bonfire night I remember was the year we went to a house with a boy called Sholto. I don't remember much, but the whole family came and shared the experience of watching the powerful flames in the middle, flowing at a hundred miles an hour round the charred logs, roaring and shining pure heat at us. It was magical.

There were other bonfire nights through the years of course, but every time, bonfire night has been a family occasion for me. It's amazing how you can bond with anyone young or old, just by watching a fire in fascination, as it dances and billows.

Today there were lots of families at the celebrations as well as others. I would prefer to be in a family there than in a student group in their little bubble where everything happens at breakneck speed over a phone or internet connection, or in a bunch of schoolkids dashing round the fairground. No, for me, time stands still next to a bonfire. Part of me longs to be alone, part of me wants to share the moment quietly with someone who I feel completely at ease with, maybe my sister or my uncle. For once I was glad to be in universityland on my own, I wasn't looking through the crowd for people I knew, I was just floating backwards and forwards through time, leaning over the railings towards the bonfire.

Ornithology

I am coming to the conclusion that either University is very bad for birds, or home is very good. In five days at home revising for exams last June I saw all of these birds:
Blackbird ... Wren ... Blue tit ... Sparrow ... Carrion crow ... Greenfinch ... Chaffinch ... Great tit ... Robin ... Pigeon ... Pied wagtail ... Barn Owl ... Starling ... Swallow ... Kestrel ... Goldfinch ... Thrush

At university I have not seen that many types of bird in three years. The only ones I am likely to see on 5 randomly picked days are pigeons, ducks and blackbirds, with a possiblity of crows, starlings, moorhens and swans. So admittedly, it does win on water birds.

But today university won some respectability. A green woodpecker was hopping along the ground, looking into the air for danger, or maybe looking for insects to catch. I followed it across the grass in the brick-walled court, keeping my distance as I did so. I had a duck on each side of me, pecking at the grass, doing the ineffectual scooping motion that they do with their beaks (made for water, I tell you). Then down a tree came a squirrel, which bounded joyfully across the grass. It came so close to the woodpecker that the woodpecker had to jump out of the way, giving a couple of flaps of its wings, just to make sure. It seemed unreal to see animals packed in such a small area in the concrete jungle of university. But for just a moment, university beat home for wildlife

The end of third year part II

Graduation was a great occasion. I arrived at around eleven, and went with some graduands towards the ceremony. The clothes were brilliant: their shoes were newly polished (no buckles allowed), dress suits dry-cleaned and dress shirts hired. They wore white bow ties with white bands (these are old-fashioned items that you would recognise if you saw them, but I have never been required to wear them) - stiff rectangular pieces of cloth that stick out from under the bow tie. Over all that, they wore the gown appropriate to their degree. In most cases this is a black academic gown with white fur lining the hood. Most had mortarboard hats, and all this made them look fantastic. I mean, they are silly, impractical clothes, but they all looked very grand, and it made the whole day special.

I wasn't allowed into the ceremony, so you will have to remind me to describe that to you next year when I graduate myself. Meeting all of their parents was interesting because it showed that even now, parents are capable of embarassing their children (most of them were lovely though), and then it became another day of saying goodbye to friends.

It did occur to me that there are less people leaving than it seems, because some people are here for another year, some are doing different courses or getting a job here and so aren't really leaving. But there are still some people who are leaving and who I will miss a lot, including:

Mirat - gone back to America, I feel like we have got to know each other better and better over the whole year, until we were really close friends at the end of the year. Keep in contact
Katy - also gone back to America, it's been great getting to know you this year, and I hope we keep in contact and I'm gonna have to come to see you all in America to practise my accent! Memories from parties, pubs, cafes and lecture theatres will stay with me for a long time
Duncan - the third materials' scientist. We have had a great time drinking tea, especially oooooolong, judging eurovision entries, and talking about alloys of course. I hope you open a cafe someday, even if it is after you retire from teaching. I am expecting visits!
Mark - I have always taken our friendship for granted as we have lived next door for three years, but we have always got on well, and seem to be able to spend unending time together wasting time without getting bored. It's weird to have to make an effort to keep in contact, but I hope we do
Clare - graduated now, and finding a job next year. I never realised how important you are to me until you were about to leave, and I won't let you lose contact because we have been through a lot together and understand each other pretty well
Kaleen - since you will be abroad next year, I doubt we will meet again. It's a shame, because at one point we were such good friends, but these things happen sometimes, I wish you well, and will miss you very much
Dave - meeting on various evenings for tea and cheese has always been a pleasure, and it will be a shame that you are further away than "just across college" from now on
Martin - you are a really great bloke, and I could learn a lot from you, especially in friendship, tolerance and discipline. I know you well, but always wish I had got to know you a little better, and for that reason I hope we will keep in close contact

It's a long list so I have not put everyone in, there are others I am sad to see leave

The end of third year part I

Having exams a couple of weeks before everyone left meant that this term has been stressful for most of the time. And you all know that when you get stressed about something, everything else seems more stressful too. I have been worried about far too many things, and if I hadn't been working for the exams, you would have been reading lots more neurotic posts on here. Most of the worries have gone away now, with a couple of exceptions, one of which I'll explain now.

I put some parts of my life on hold for a while this term (sorry if you normally get e-mails from me but haven't recently), and have had to catch up on everything since then. Unfortunately there were only a couple of weeks between the end of exams and the end of term. For instance, there are friends who I argued with or drifted apart from, and two weeks is a short time to make up with them enough to count ourselves as close friends again. I left on good terms with everyone I think, but we are not close enough to stay in contact, and that saddens me. I have moved house a few times in the past, so I know that it's very hard to keep in contact with everyone, so it is something I'll forget about, but it's a shame nevertherless.

That doesn't mean that the last weeks of term weren't great fun, as I said in "An Exceptional Time", because the amount of great times was unbelievable and I packed a lot in.

Just realised I have sounded more negative recently than all the excitement in my life deserves (even in "An Exceptional Time"), so don't worry, I'm happy at the moment and having a lovely time :-)

The Real World

Without wanting to imply that I do not always live in the real world, some people I know from outside university came yesterday, and I remembered that there is a "real world" out there. Such a relief! Living in a university is a little bubble and when you try to get out, it just get reflected back in by sharing the experience with friends. Boy george (an old schoolfriend, who is a pretty funky fellow) came over on Friday and we sat and chatted about the old days and the new days and even the days to come, while burning marshmallows in candle, being careful not to set the fire alarm off. Then my family came down and took me out for a nice meal and things. Talking about things at home, like people in the village, is not so exciting when you live there. But to escape my little bubble and think about my home-bubble was great. Does everyone live in a bubble (or maybe two bubbles) or is there actually a real world out there? And do I want to find it, or shall I just swap bubbles just to keep it interesting? Maybe the "real world" only exists for people who are continuously swapping bubbles, so don't notice they are in a bubble at all.

mmm soapy