Bombay Bicycle Club are in Cambridge tomorrow. I, however, am not. This is a very distressing situation.

But I have a steaming cup of coffee, warm socks, the promise of grilled asparagus at dinner tonight and the smell of burning wood (the best smell in the world) is wafting over from next-door's bonfire.

So I'm listening to this song on repeat and trying to think of all the things I've been blessed with, even if they don't include tickets to the concert tomorrow.

Archway, St John's College. 

Perfection.

Rosemary Murray Library, Cambridge. good for naps and essays.

Spent today clearing out the boxes of stuff under my bed. Three boxes full of piles of school work, books and heaps of paper.
I started university in October. It's only been seven months, but I feel like a completely different person.
I was always a nerd at school, most of my self-worth came from exam results and hard work; but at Cambridge you can't always be top of the class.
It's really forced me to see myself as God sees me, with the blood of Jesus covering my failures and inadequacies.
It's meant that letting go of my old school work was pretty easy, it was quite a relief to be free of the standards I used to set myself, always striving to be the best, not being happy with anything less than perfection.
The funny thing is, all that time I was looking for it, perfection was always there,

2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'
 

Yet more painting instead of revising.

This quote from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock always reminds me of the giant glass cases of pinned butterflies you see in museums; but I imagine Prufrock himself to be rather more like a beetle than a butterfly.

(poor photo quality, but the drawing is so big it won't fit in the scanner!)

I was just messing about with some watercolour and ended up with a flock of teeny tiny birds,

I thought they were rather fitting for one of the many quotes I'm attempting to memorize for my exams.

I might have to make some more of these for the rest of the books I'm revising.

Three days into my revision schedule and all I've done is get sun-burnt.
I've spent the majority of this week in the garden reading Jane Eyre, under the pretense of re-familiarizing myself with it for the purpose of my exams, but really because I just love Charlotte Bronte's writing. I can always manage to totally immerse myself in her narrative, no matter how many times I've read it before.

Yesterday my sister finally got to go to the cinema to see the Hunger Games. Mum and I decided to go an see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at the same time. I hadn't heard anything about it before Mum asked me if I wanted to see it, but one Google search later and I was sold. It's got a fantastic cast, proper British talent, and they really don't disappoint. I've got a lot of respect for Dame Maggie Smith, she's utterly brilliant as Lady Grantham in Downton and in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel she doesn't disappoint, she delivers lines with such pointed acerbity, and impeccable timing, that you can't help but stop and admire the actress, and the writing, behind the character.

I was very aware of being significantly younger than every other person watching the film, by at least twenty years. That isn't to say this was a surprising revelation, the film is about pensioners finding themselves in India and it definitely lacked the excitement or tension of your average blockbuster. It was extremely predictable, but satisfyingly so. Well executed, innocuous, lighthearted comedy. I really quite liked it. And, well, anything with Dev Patel is guaranteed to make me happy.

It almost totally ignores the diversity its location in India and instead rather inwardly focuses on the personal dramas of the characters. Despite this, it makes for an utterly captivating background, I felt immeasurably jealous for the majority of the film and by the end had resolved to visit myself before I need my own hips replacing.

One.

I loved keeping a blog so much last year I've decided to do it again.I've changed so much over the last 12 months, it's strange to think how different I might be in another 12. This time next year I'll be a second year, living out of college, over half-way through my degree. I'm so excited to see how it's all going to happen!

My main motivation for starting again is to get back into just writing for the fun of writing. I've written so many essays over the last two terms that I really need some space to just enjoy words again, and to think about the books I'm reading alongside the academic stuff. and I'd just really like to keep track of the things that make me happy and sad.