Never Study Politics and Religion

For those of you who have romanticised memories of being a student of happy times in pubs with your friends, sleeping in till noon and just generally mucking about and having a whale of a time I say: you lie to yourselves, it's bloody hard work.

After handing in two essays yesterday about 200 years of Islamic history and a British Government essay which involved reading through the transcript of a 5 hour parliamentary debate I am currently 1000 words into a 2000 word essay in which I must define democracy, for the rest of the weekend I shall be arguing the finer points of the events leading to the Cold War both of which must be in by Tuesday by which time I should also have read lots of chapters on ideologies, the civil service and realist theory post WW2. My brain hurts. I want to get out of the house, I want a pint..

I have got a job as a cleaning lady! Yes it's true, every Thursday morning I go to a big new house and clean it. It is really shit but I get a free workout and 7 pounds an hour. The people are quite nice but seem to enjoy hunting and are members of the Countryside Alliance. I should hate them but I've grown up too much and am too tired to hold such naive ideological views anymore.

In bird news, I saw the following types of bird in our garden today within half an hour : Greenfinch, House Sparrow, Bluetit, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Goldfinch (a first appearance), Blackbird, Starling, Wood Pidgeon & Collared Dove. Perhaps I now know why I have so little time left for my essays.