The Need to Recharge

Blogging activity has been thin on the ground for the best part of October, for which I apologise. My only excuse is the misplacement of my brain. I’ve now been working flat out for ten weeks. Back at UEA students get a reading week around the half-term mark (why, I have no idea. Since coming out here I’ve been unable to fathom what we needed a break from), and most other American universities have had a ‘fall break’, a in which to travel and take a bit of time out. Berkeley students have no such joy: and it shows. As the weather has turned student life has grown increasingly subdued, and crossing the Sproul everyone you meet now has a faint grey pallor beneath their tans. The onslaught of midterms has been relentless, and the bears are exhausted. The football team is equally washed out, losing the Big Game 21-3 to Stanford last weekend, in- what even I could tell- was a pitiful team effort. 

 

Here are several things that are currently wrong with my life:

1)      On Tuesday I drowned my phone in the bathroom sink. Only just managed to salvage it again by giving it a thorough blowdry and sticking it into a cup of dry rice puffs overnight.

2)      I misplaced my Cal ID somewhere by the Morrison building. It was rescued by a science student and is now somewhere in a bioengineering lab on the North Side of Campus. After a fruitless effort this afternoon, wandering in ever-increasing circles in an attempt to find the right lab, and never feeling smaller and more stupid, I gave up trying to locate it. Second effort tomorrow. 

3)      I’ve lost the ability to concentrate on my reading, and basic conversational skills and cognitive functions are currently eluding me. My mind isn’t wandering so much as on a full-time ramble, and I think the ‘eccentric British’ excuse is starting to wear thin. 

4)      I walked past my roommate twice in the street today, both times entirely failing to recognise her until she stopped and- literally- shoved a hand into my face. 

Already I can feel my concentration ambling back towards redrafting my Caliber article, so for a couple of days this will be all from me. However, I’m singing at a wedding this coming weekend, and am also on the verge of experiencing my first American Halloween, so I *promise* to deliver some more entertaining stories for you in a couple of days.