I'm alive!! Well, I feel alive now anyway. For a while back there, approximately 2 weeks ago, I was really losing the will to live. But on Monday I handed in my dissertation. All 52 pages and 12,093 words of it. Hopefully, it was good enough for me to achieve that 2:1 these past 3 years have all been about. And today I handed in the last ever essay of my Leeds University career. It was an easy essay to write, and I think that had a lot to do with writing the dissertation. My writing and analysis skills have been perfectly honed. I hope.

I can't believe how close it all is to coming to an end. In less than 3 weeks I've got my first exam. Actually, in less than 3 weeks I've got all my exams, because they're on the 16th, 17th and 18th of May. Cheers exam coordinators!!

In a lot of ways, I'm looking forward to finishing and leaving. Student life has been fun, obviously, but, and I can't believe I'm going to say this, I need to get some structure back in my life. Not getting up until nearly midday is starting to get really, really old. I don't think its neccassarily the case for everybody, but I think it is possible to outgrow being a student. Although, that may be the pressure of a dissertation, an essay, usual weekly reading, and the impending 3 most important exams I've ever sat talking. And I am sure that once I do venture out into the real world, these heady day will seem like the best time of my life. But then again, I do have another degree waiting for me in the not so distant future, so if that is the case, I can always retreat back to studentdom.

Easter was an interesting holiday. Although I did have the dissertation to write, and no money, I somehow still managed to have a good time. I didn't do any work over Easter weekend, and instead did some family day-trip type things, and really enjoyed it. I've felt a lot closer to my brother and sister over Easter as well. My sister will be 16 in September, but has been cooler than me for a long time, and I've really enjoyed spending Easter with her. We've both also felt closer to my brother as well. She even said 'I like him now, he's a lot nicer of a brother these days', and I agreed. Not that he was ever particualrly horrible (all the time), but instead of the usual sibling bickering, we can all have proper conversations and have things in common with each other. I think we might all actually be growing up. The dynamics have really changed with us, just over the past 6 months. I was always the bossy oldest, my sister was the baby who irritated my brother and was babied by me, and my brother was the unfortunate boy stuck in the middle, and with the two of us being so close in age we always used to fight. But now we're all friends, and I'm starting to see how we'll all be with each other when we're 'proper' grown-ups.

So, one last relaxing weekend without any work to do, and then the exam revision starts! Can't bloody wait.

Well, after my last post and related comments, I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that I am just a big, fat, scaredy-cat girl. But, I think we already knew that.

Dissertation is going well, I think. I finished my first chapter last night, so from now on it gets serious. The thing is, my first chapter, which was always intended to be just an introductory chapter and therefore the shortest, has somehow ended up being nearly 3000 words, and thats after some serious editing has already taken place. How did that happen? So I'm afraid Amy I'm going to have to disagree with you - I have an awful feeling that I am going to write way more than 12,000 words.

And as for being stuck indoors - a funny thing, that one. No matter how prepared I am to do some serious work, or how much I stare at my computer, or how tired I am at the end of the day, I just can't write anything. Whereas in the evening, usually right about 10.30, its like a switch gets flicked and it just flows. I'm writing about a thousand words a night. Unfortunately, I have to keep editing some of it out because I really am writing too much, but at least it shows I can do it. Its bizarre. I've never really worked like this before. Usually I spend all the daylight hours hidden away in the library, getting loads and loads of work done, and then I get home in the evening and just sit and stare at the telly. No matter how much work I have to do or even how much I (sometimes)want to do something, I just can't get it done. Now its the other way round. Strange.

I am aware that for some, if not all of you, all this dissertation talk is about as exciting as watching Home and Away (Marie and Ys excepted, obviously - you two think of another TV programme you think is stupid), but really, at the moment, its either this or Home and Away. Or maybe I could take some photos to post when I go on some exciting dog walks! In the woods behind my house. In the same type of trees I'm sure you already have where you live. No? OK then. Dissertation it is.