Image by me on Flickr

Following on from my last post, I thought I’d talk a little about how the last few days have been. Pretty much since I wrote it my withdrawal symptoms have got a bit worse – how inconvenient of them to wait until after I’d posted!

Primarily, my brain zaps have gotten worse. I didn’t really talk about these much in my last post, save a brief mention, so I thought I’d try to explain how they feel as best I can. When I tried to explain them to my personal tutor I ended up just saying “they’re… WEIRD!” a lot, so hopefully I’ll be a bit more eloquent this time around.

I think they bear the closest resemblance to the little “leap” your mind does when you’re caught by surprise or have a close shave with something, but they’re quite similar to electric shocks in many way too. There’s also a sensation of your brain expanding and pushing against the inside your skull. I’ve had a few that were a bit like a taser, in that they came in a quick succession of “clicks” (not quite as dangerous though, obviously). The worst ones are like earthquakes in my brain, with shock waves rippling through my jaw and down into my neck. Sometimes I get sensations like I’ve been sucking something sour – that pain at the back of your teeth. I often find myself involuntarily widening my eyes or blinking rapidly as they happen, along with the more inevitable dizziness and nausea. Brain zaps aren’t painful (except when they are the “earthquake” variety), but they’re incredibly disorientating – perhaps even more so because of how intangible they are. Mine happen every few seconds, though not with any regularity. There’s nothing I can take for them either – it’s simply a case of riding them out.

Let me remind you that my psychiatrist, a medical doctor with specialism in mental health, told me this wouldn’t happen despite me telling him that I’d found it was a near-universal experience when withdrawing from venlafaxine. This was the same person that told me anti-depressants don’t have withdrawal effects.

Aside from the zaps, I’ve just had the usual nausea and headaches. (Also, as I wrote this, I started shaking uncontrollably, as if my body saw what my brain was doing and said, “that looks fun, I wanna try!”) However, I’ve found my head has also been a lot “busier” even than it is normally, making it nigh on impossible to concentrate on anything. I had a day away from Twitter to try to clear my head, but it wasn’t especially successful – now I’m kind of craving a bit of a “digital holiday”. I feel a bit guilty for this, since Twitter and Facebook are pretty much the only ways for me to interact with my friends and I feel as if by wanting time away I’m saying I don’t like or appreciate them even though I do.

I wonder if this has anything to do with Not-So-Nice Friend, who insisted on talking at length every day and got angry if I dared to have a social life, accusing me using her to make myself feel better so I could spend time with other people, though also got angry when I stopped accepting social invitations because she said I was being a burden, then refused my attempts to give her some space because it meant I was abandoning her and she had no one else… except the circle of friends she told me about. (This is incredibly uncharitable of me to say, and I regret being so unkind, but I’m feeling poorly and probably wouldn’t be if I hadn’t had my mind played with so much. Dr Freud would have a field day with me…) I’m an introvert by nature though, and if I don’t have that alone time I might just shrivel up and die. (Which would at least mean I wouldn’t do any more exaggerating.)

I’ve been trying to figure out what might be behind this sudden worsening of my withdrawal symptoms (besides natural variations and coincidence, of course). One factor might be the fact that the incredibly vivid dreams I was so pleased had gone away somewhat have returned in full force – if nothing else, my depression has a sense of humour. I’ve also been thinking a lot about Not-So-Nice Friend, partly because of the Big Bang Fair coming up reminding me how horrible she was to me last year when I went. Another factor may be the amount of just horrible things I’ve read recently – on Valentine’s Day I was planning to keep an eye on the #lonely hashtag to see if anyone needed support, but as soon as the column flashed up on Tweetdeck I just imploded. I’ve also read a couple of really horrendous articles – I wasn’t going to link them, but I think everyone needs to read them, even though they are very upsetting. Just heed my warnings, please.

Here’s the first article, about how the extremely homophobic climate created by evangelical Christians in Michelle Bachman’s home district is leading to a wave of young LGBTQ* people taking their lives (trigger warning for homophobia, bullying and suicide). Here’s the second, about a bill recently passed in Virginia relating to abortion that I can’t even begin to describe without feeling physically sick (trigger warning for rape, because that is what this is). Less triggering but still pretty awful was an incident involving the “humour” section of my university’s paper, along with the general environment of sexism, described in this fantastic piece by Stephen Smith (trigger warning for trivialisation of rape – not by Stephen, of course, but by the article he was discussing and some of the commenters). I’ve been meaning to blog about it but it just makes me want to cry how some of the (allegedly) most intelligent young people in the country, or even the world, could not recognise such flaws in their reasoning. I also got really angry at myself because I got something wrong in one of the comments I made on and I feel like a massive hypocrite for doing so. Also, there’s been Baroness Warsi. Just… Baroness Warsi.

Anyway, I’m trying to get on with things regardless. Tomorrow is the second Innovation Lab – I will have missed both thanks to my various mental maladies. Again, my depression has a sense of humour… Reasons to be cheerful, though (beside the whole “white, comfortably-off, relatively-healthy young person living in a developed nation able to read, write, do maths and pretty much whatever else she wants etc. etc.” thing), include the fact that I have booked my various tickets for ESOF 2012 and the Big Bang Fair! I am so excited about going to Dublin – it will be lovely to have a holiday, visit a brand new place and attend a lot of interesting lectures. I am almost as excited about the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham next month; this will be my second as a volunteer, third overall. I can’t believe it was three years ago that I traipsed down to London with my project and traipsed back having had one of the best experiences of my life!

?POSTSCRIPT: In that last post I referred to a favourite song by the Magnetic Fields, and was going to do something similar in this post – as you see I haven’t, but it reminded me that I’ve been thinking of doing music reviews on this blog. Similarly to my book reviewing pledge, I want to practice writing them because, to be honest, I’m not very good at them and I’d also like to experiment with a variety of writing styles. (I have been told I have terrible taste in music, but that was in response to saying I didn’t want to go and see Scouting for Girls in concert. Make of that what you will.) I’ve also been thinking of doing some interviews as more practice and since I am lucky enough to count lots of very interesting people amongst my friends!

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar on Flickr

Title because I can’t stop singing those lyrics instead of the real ones (you’ll see why soon). I was going to link to a really beautiful fanvid set to that song, which was what got me into The Magnetic Fields, but it’s been taken down – excellent work there, copyright peeps. Feature photo because it’s how I look when I feel sad, only less fluffy and adorable. Also teh kittehz haz teh awesum.

I thought now would be a good time to talk about my experiences with venlafaxine (also known as Effexor), now that I’ve only got two weeks left of taking it. First of all, the history part! I was started on venlafaxine last summer – I took 75mg a day of the extended release for a couple of months, then had my dosage increased to 150mg a day because of the lack of efficacy of the former dosage. Translation: I had a fairly bad manic episode, though that was chalked down to “anxiety” and the psychiatrist made me feel like I was wasting his time, even though mania is one of the listed side effects of venlafaxine. I’d been on mirtazapine previously, but I’ll talk about that in another post. All you need to know now is I was put on venlafaxine because I came off mirtazapine. (I’ve also taken diazepam and amitriptyline, but those were supplementary to those main drugs. I’ll talk about them too though.)

Anyway, I was on the 150mg dosage for a few months, until I saw another psychiatrist a month ago. (This psychiatrist was even less kind – again, another post.) He decided I should come off venlafaxine because its side effects had gotten to the level where they were cancelling out any positive effect the drug was having. I’ve been tapering my dosage since then using the immediate-release form – first two weeks on 112.5mg a day, then two more on 75mg, now two on 37.5mg, and after these two weeks I’ll be drug free. It’s necessary to reduce your dosage of psychotropic drugs gradually because they have withdrawal effects and whatever meant you had to take them can return to a dangerous degree (you can have serious suicidal thoughts, for example). Though, naturally, since he isn’t a medical doctor with a specialism in mental illness or anything, my psychiatrist told me that anti-depressants don’t have withdrawal effects! He even got annoyed with me when I tried to point out I’d experienced them myself, along with basically everyone who’s ever come off a psychotropic drug! But what do I know, eh? Ignorant people like that really make me angry. I’m really lucky to be relatively sound of mind and therefore recognise when I’m told harmful things – what about all those who can’t? Argh. Anyway, I’ve got a huge post planned (and almost finished) on all the worst things I’ve been told by mental health professionals. That’ll be fun.

At this point I realise I haven’t gone into much detail about the important stuff – namely, the side effects I experienced. Those of you in the know about antidepressants may already know of venlafaxine’s reputation as pretty nasty stuff despite, or perhaps because of, its ability to pull you out of the deepest lows if it gets on with you. There’s actually a petition to ban venlafaxine – not exactly the most reassuring thing to read about when you’re on it! Mirtazapine and venlafaxine are also known as “last-resort” drugs – they’re the ones you turn to if nothing else. I was put on them straight away, which I suppose if nothing else that shows how badly I needed medicating. Nevertheless, if I had the choice I wouldn’t take antidepressants again, and am planning not to once I finish coming off venlafaxine.

The most significant side effect I experienced while on venlafaxine was a general feeling of being “out of it” – in other words, constant fatigue, dizziness, being forgetful and depersonalisation. This made it really difficult to motivate myself and concentrate, though at the same time my emotions were fairly numbed so I slowly worked around that. Early on, as I mentioned, I had a significant manic episode induced by the drug, though once I increased my dosage that went away as much as I could have hoped. I also had digestive problems and chest pains, though these weren’t too severe – I had regular ECGs and blood pressure checks to ensure the drugs weren’t having any adverse physical effect on me. Some of the slightly stranger effects venlafaxine had were making me yawn all the time and giving me the habit of grinding my teeth – my jaw clicks like crazy now! I also developed a nervous tic, itched all the time and had to get a new prescription in my glasses because of how my vision was effected. On the more positive side of things, venlafaxine seemed to control the extremes of my emotions and actually helped to get me back to myself. It gave me the ability to get out of bed in the morning and the strength to end a friendship that had become abusive (well, it helped – most of the strength came from the support of other people). It also helped to correct my sleep pattern somewhat. I’m not sure these positives were worth the negatives though.

This brings us onto the dreams. I’ve always had quite vivid dreams – a vivid imagination in general, really – thanks to how active my mind is. That’s not an “I’m like so clever LOL” comment, because I’m not – that’s a “WHY CAN’T I STOP ANALYSING AND IMAGINING RIDICULOUS THINGS FOR ONE SECOND?!” comment. (It’s very helpful when you’re trying to debug a program; not so much when you’re trying to sleep. Or trying not to have a nervous breakdown.) However, before going on venlafaxine these dreams would happen maybe two or three times a week. While on venlafaxine? Every. Single. Night. And they just got more and more complex and nightmarish, to the point where I’d wake up more exhausted than when I went to bed. So, yes, it probably is dangerous to have venlafaxine dreams!

As I’ve come off my pills, I’ve felt some of these symptoms go away, though some have remained and others have appeared. I’m still having difficulty with concentration and motivation, though that’s improving as the drug leaves my system – I’m quite surprised at how much! The one particularly negative withdrawal effect has been brain zaps. These are hard to describe accurately, but imagine painless electric shocks in your brain every few seconds and you’re just about there. These are quite distressing, but nothing I can’t cope with – they just give me headaches and nausea and add an extra dimension of difficulty to concentrating on things. At points I’ve felt completely awful, but I try to remind myself that every day is a step towards getting off my drugs altogether.

Also, not surprisingly, as I’ve come off venlafaxine I’ve found my emotions have become more vivid too. It’s lovely to be able to get really excited and happy about things again, and to be able to act on ideas and plans. However, with this comes a downside – its negative equivalent. Things I think I’ve sorted out suddenly bother me again; even tiny things overwhelm me. It gets unbearable to think of anyone being sad or in pain. I’m going to have to find whole new ways to cope with these emotions, without help from any counsellors or psychiatrists (I’ve been told I can’t have any more therapy, even though I’ve never actually had any that was designed for a “complex mental illness” like mine). However, as my mind becomes more lucid that in itself should get easier. And, hey – caring deeply about things and feeling strong emotions is far better than apathy!

One benefit of being more open about my mental illness has been gaining similarly open friends with similar experiences. I’ve heard from them about some of the things to look out for relating to, amongst other things, antidepressant withdrawal and have therefore recognised them. I’ve also had so much support from everyone who now understands what’s happening to me, and I’m eternally grateful for how many wonderful people I have around me. I’m hoping talking about my experiences here will also help other people!

To summarise, my experiences with venlafaxine were alright, though at some points hellish – especially the withdrawal. In other words, probably not worth it. If you can avoid it, do. If you can’t, look after yourself and don’t let anyone force medication down your throat as a substitute for getting you proper therapy. Most importantly? If you take the capsule form, as I did, be sure to use them as tiny maracas every time you need to choke one down. It will make life seem worth living again no matter how ill you are.

I don’t want any of my dear blog readers to enter into a maths degree under false pretences. Therefore, please check out this informational graphic.

Consider yourself informated.

Photo by me on Flickr (I took this in January so it totally counts as something more than a vanity shot)

I’m going to start off with something I want YOU to do! If you’d be kind enough to spare a few seconds of your time and precisely zero pence to like this image for my EUCYS friend Megan’s sister, who is hoping to win the Science Expo photo contest (sort of a Canadian version of the Big Bang Fair), that would be lovely. Thank you!

I dictated loads of stuff for this post, but since Dragon ate that stuff it will be a pale imitation of the one I was imagining, now lost to the ravages of cyberspace. I was planning to write a review of January at the very start of February. It is now the 10th, approximately a third of the way into February. That’s… actually quite good for me. I quite like the idea of reviewing the year as it happens (i.e. once a month), rather than right at the end – aside from anything else, I need an accurate portrait of what I’ve been doing to keep me motivated! Wednesday’s Twitter promise to post this failed, but I’m trying to reframe things like that, as well as bigger failures like how slow I’ve been to make good on plans for awesome projects, as the minor setbacks they are and keep positive instead of beating myself up. I’m trying to be more positive in general; people say “positive thinking can’t cure depression”, but it’s so much easier to start getting better from a positive position than a negative one. I’ll probably write a bit more on that when I collect my thoughts.

To expand on that promise thing, it seems to be going well – I currently have a 67% success rate, which is a lot higher than most tactics I try. Okay, I’ve only done it for three days, but again, usually these things fail right off the bat. You might ask why I post these promises online if I can just make them to myself, and similarly why I’m posting this sort-of to-do list on my blog; I think the problem with a promise to yourself is you can break it and no one else will know. You can rely on low self-esteem to tell you “well, it doesn’t matter, you only promised yourself”. When you promise to someone else, even if it’s only quite casual, you had better keep it. I’ve always found guilt an excellent motivator. Makes up for it being an excellent way to make myself want to hide under the desk and rock gently for the rest of my life.

Today’s promise is to post at least one blog post, so if you’re reading this and you’re not me (or you ARE me and it’s been made public) then my success rate is now 75%! Quantifying things is fun. As are lists. So here are some lists.

What I did in January and the first third of February

• Began withdrawing from venlafaxine and also got a sinus infection, so had plenty of excuses to lie in bed all day! (I have a post on my withdrawal experience planned, don’t fret – as if you would…)
• Read three books (and wrote two reviews) – this track record has prompted me to reduce my 2012 reading challenge, just so I don’t become the first person to ever have “too much reading” on their death certificate
• Wrote five blog posts
• Received my first advertising offers… and decided to become an ad-free blog – I have nothing against people who accept advertising on their blogs, it’s just not for me
• Got some money for books by using Amazon Trade-In
• Got my Creative Sparks finances up to date and found out I have more money left over than I thought!
• Used my free month of Netflix watching In The Heat Of The Night, The English Patient, Midnight Cowboy, The Mighty Boosh, Firefly and Arrested Development, as a result of which…
• Became OBSESSED with Firefly (I have watched all of the episodes, I have followed all the cast on Twitter, now I’m debating whether to buy “Serenity” or wait until I’m back at Imperial and borrow it from the sci fi library. I don’t think I can wait that long for my next fix! This show might have replaced “The X Files” as my favourite. THAT IS A BIG DEAL.)
• I may have become obsessed with a few other things too – namely Pinterest, Imperial Memes (remember how last time I said I thought I could get a first? I did not anticipate memes) and the fact I can get free software (not much of it, I grant you, but still!)
• Completed a three-thousand word first draft of an article on the Higgs boson, described as “promising” (much better than my expected “MY EYES!!1!1!”) and currently going through second drafting and fact-checking
• Deleted my Youtube account… then made a new one the next day (not sure what will happen with this, watch this space!)
• Actually bought a viola! If you’re looking to purchase a stringed instrument I wholeheartedly recommend Tim Batchelar of Leicester – he’s a master and gave me an excellent deal
• Went to a super interesting “webinar” (online seminar) this morning on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Telescope with a couple of scientists working on it – that’s the next thing I’ll be writing!

What I’ll do in what’s left of February

• Finish coming off venlafaxine – I won’t miss it!
• Get up to date with my reading and reviews – I’m already behind, BUT THIS IS JUST A MINOR SETBACK *positive*
• Clear out my “high priority” posts – I have about half a dozen posts that I really want to get done and have been putting off for whatever reason (I also need to sort out other boring blog stuff like little layout tweaks, categories, tags and maybe links – and maybe some form of promotion, however much it makes me twitch)
• Get some more money for books using Amazon and Green Metropolis
• Put a day’s worth of work into launching OutSTEM (consisting of “profiles, mailing list and social media stuff”) – that’s seriously all that’s standing between me and a fully functioning site
• Send some emails about some TOP SECRET projects… most of which I have already talked about here
• Book various tickets – first for the Big Bang Fair next month (SO EXCITED), then for ESOF Dublin 2012 in July (my last Creative Sparks-funded jolly abroad, probably – gonna make the most of it!)
• Fill in a TNMoC volunteering form I’ve had since August, oops…
• Get back up to date with Be Mindful Online and Codecademy, double oops…
• Actually engage a little with InnovationLabs before it’s over, infinite oops…
• Organise something #NotAlone365-y for Valentine’s, because it will probably be a lonely time for a lot of people
• Sort out all the little admin things I have to do before I can actually go back to Imperial
• Finish knitting this
• Just this.

Finally, a lovely friend from Twitter who goes by SnooAndMe gave me a “Sunshine Award” on her blog. This entails me answering a few fun questions, then passing on that challenge to some other people! Here’s who I’ve chosen:

Cameron: because she’s always happy to lend a friendly ear and some advice – otters are the kindest of animals
John: because it’s great chatting to him on Twitter and his blog is funny and thought-provoking in equal measure
Dave: because meeting up with him last month reminded me what a lovely person he is!
Benedict: because he always makes me smile – and after all his serious posts on ACTA I want him to write about his favourite colour

Without further ado, here are my answers. I had far too much fun writing them.

Favourite colour: probably “Teal Tension”, the colour of my bedroom. I couldn’t even begin to explain the name.
Favourite animal: Einsteinette, my pet Chinese dwarf hamster (named “Einstein” on my behalf by my mum, before we found out she was a she and not a he). Even when she trashes her cage like a rock star.
Favourite non-alcoholic drink: I’m teetotal, so the “non-alcoholic” is technically redundant At the moment I’m really keen on Imperial Teas of Lincoln’s peach tea, iced and sweetened. Soooo good.
Facebook or Twitter: People-wise, both equally; interface-wise, Twitter.
Favourite number: I feel as a closet mathematician I should love all numbers equally, but I have a fondness for eight. It looks like a Moebius strip. Moebius strips are cool.
Favourite day of the week: Fried-egg, fried-egg…
My passion: physics. And ABC sandwiches. (I’m vegetarian except for those beauties. They’re the real reason I wanted to come back to Imperial.)
Getting or giving presents: Giving! I’m really looking forward to being able to knit passably so I can start making people halfway-decent presents.
Favourite pattern: there is too much maths for me to choose just one! Maybe Sierpinski gaskets, since you’re twisting my arm.
Favourite flower: Camellia sinensis. (I can quit any time I want.)

As I now can’t get the song below out of my head, I’m passing it onto you. Consider it a reward for getting this far…

Photo by Florizel Media on Flickr

[Apologies to those of you following my RSS feed, I accidentally made this post public last week when it was half done and can't undo it being sent to RSS.]

[Also, this blog post probably only got done tonight because I promised to do a blog post on Twitter and I try as hard as I can not to break promises - I reckon this may be a useful motivation tool!]

Short version: I’m going back to Imperial this autumn as a first year.

Long version: Are you sitting comfortably? Good! You might want to get a cup of tea or something though.

So, on Thursday the 19th I went down to London to meet with my personal tutor and the senior physics tutor to finalise my plans for the future. I talk to my personal tutor quite often – she was the one who suggested the meeting and also had a word with the senior tutor about possible options that involved me being able to stay at Imperial. The one I’d previously been aware of was resitting the couple of exams I failed in first year and going back to Imperial in second year, which I eventually discounted because of the high possibility of it ending with me having a massive breakdown. One new suggestion was commuting from home, which was basically the bad parts of Plan A and Plan B combined. The final suggestion (besides leaving Imperial and joining the circus the OU) was redoing first year, though only redoing the exams I failed (something I’d been told previously wasn’t allowed). Previously I’d been told this wasn’t possible, but my personal tutor suggested I pursue it again just in case. As she put it, “we would be sad to see you, such a bright student, leaving”, which bolstered my ego somewhat… (I should point out she is far too lovely, at least to me.)

I’ll take a brief detour here to explain the British university grading system a little, as well as my own grades. Here’s a fairly self-explanatory breakdown of grade boundaries:

First – 70-100%
Upper second (2:1) – 60-69%
Lower second (2:2) – 50-59%
Third – 40-49%
Fail – 0-39%

In order to go onto a PhD you need a first or a 2:1, and these days most graduate jobs seem to require at least a 2:1. In the Imperial physics department you have to pass every course to go onto the next year – if you don’t have mitigating circumstances (as I do, with my mental illness) the resits are capped at 40%. Now, here are my grades for the first year, which the perfectionist part of me is a little twitchy about sharing because they really don’t reflect my potential and drive (as you’ll see, I failed two modules), but I guess at the very least they help illustrate how much my circumstances affected me.

*Mathematics – 61%
Mechanics & Relativity – 69%
*Quantum Physics, Structure of Matter & Vibrations and Waves – 36%
*Electronics & Electricity and Magnetism – 31%
Laboratory – 74%
Professional Skills – 73%
Mathematical Analysis – 69%
Project – 93%

The modules with asterisks in front of them were the exams I cried in Less pathetically, they’re also the ones where I missed huge chunks of lectures because I couldn’t leave the house and teaching myself the material proved wholly unsuccessful. Hopefully this won’t come across as conceited, but as I got all these scores with very little revision, I think I have a good chance of eventually getting a first – which is basically what I need anyway. (“Professor Williams” has a ring to it, no? Well, I know how low my chances are of actually making it that far, but no harm in thinking big, eh?) Including those failed modules my overall score was about 59%; excluding them it was about 69%; I say “about” because there are various subtly different weighting systems on the Imperial website and I’m not sure which one applied during my year. Yes, I worked that out. Yes, it was because I wanted to prove to myself that I’m not a complete failure as a human being. Yes, I realised after that I could cover up my neuroses by saying it was merely analysis performed to improve my case in asking to repeat first year. No, I shouldn’t have mentioned that second thing.

Anyway, I met with my personal tutor, and we chatted lots as we do, and then I went down to see the senior tutor. I checked on Facebook beforehand to see if he was nice and was told he was… and he was! Not that I think they’d hire some kind of sociopath to look after students, or that a sociopath would even apply for a pastoral-type role, but you never know… So, anyway, we have established: senior tutor = nice = a good thing. I went in with a list of things to discuss because I know myself too well, and all of my fears were allayed in quicker succession than I ever expected. Repeating first year was fine – previously it had been thought not to be simply because of a misreading of a college rule – and all I had to do was check I could still get finance, which I can as long as I send a covering letter and evidence. To be honest, whenever I’ve interacted with someone at Imperial regarding my illness and how it affects my studies it’s been a positive experience, for which I’m incredibly thankful. It’s made a stressful time much less stressful than it could have been.

You might be wondering, why am I so happy about this news when I was so enthusiastic about the OU? Well, I’d still be happy with the OU, but it was a compromise of sorts because when I made the decision to leave Imperial I thought my only option was to go back in second year. That option would have entailed teaching myself enough Electronics, Electricity and Magnetism, Quantum Physics, Structure of Matter and Vibrations and Waves to at least pass the exams, and then revise everything else from first year as well, all before going back this autumn and before starting a new, full-intensity year. I just knew that if I did that, even if I managed to pass the exams, all my subsequent work would have been built on shaky foundations and eventually those foundations would have given way and the knowledge would have all fallen down and destroyed my already fragile sanity. And I wouldn’t have even had a nice shiny building- er, degree to show for it. I would have rather had a good degree from the OU and my sanity (what exists of it) intact, than at best a lesser degree from Imperial and a lot more work to do mentally speaking. (At worst, I’d have been squashed by a fallen building. And this is why I don’t do metaphors.)

BUT, now I can go back to Imperial and get a degree that reflects my abilities, AND avoid losing my mind any more than the average Imperial student planning to become an academic! I can have my Queen’s Tower-shaped cake and eat it, AND have a cup of tea to go with it! Result!

I actually think I would have gone mad even with the OU option. As much as I love my family, living in my population 3821 village is already making me climb the walls. If I had to do it full-time for another three years… eep. Aside from that, Imperial is just so perfect. I know I’m a gushing fool and probably very irritating in my love of it, but I can’t find very much wrong with Imperial. It started and ended when they lost my UCAS application and told me I’d been rejected! (They put that right, obviously. Otherwise I wouldn’t blame you for ringing the authorities. And then making a very poor sitcom about the whole affair.) I think it can be summed up by something my friend Benedict, who I know through ICSF, said on his excellent and thought-provoking blog:

It’s a great place to have random conversations about random (preferably science-, technology- and medicine-related) things: the sheer concentration of people thinking about things is amazing, and sometimes disturbing.

I am however planning a full article on just what makes Imperial so special, so don’t go thinking you’ve escaped. HA!

Aside from all of that, I had a lovely day down in London meeting with a few awesome people. Living out here in the sticks means I don’t get to interact much with anyone besides my family, which made seeing some friendly faces even better. First I met with Damian, who was in the stand next to me at EUCYS and is now on an exchange year at Imperial, and we had tea. I had searched for the best place to get it online but for some reason most cafés only talk about their coffee – not much good for a pair of tea fiends! (Speaking of which, here is the link to the amazing jasmine tea that I mentioned while we were talking – I didn’t think it was right to only share it with one person.) We talking about all sorts, notably the difference between physics at ETH Zürich and Imperial, and the EUCYS mini-reunion that will DEFINITELY be going ahead, even if it’s just the two of us turning up at a decent tea room.

I also had lunch with Isabella, who is both on my course and lived opposite me in Fisher Hall. She also showed me “The Wrath of Khan”, for which I shall be forever grateful. It was my first time going to a Japanese restaurant – it was one of the ones with a sushi conveyor belt, which we found out are strangely hypnotic things… (We also found out that Isabella is capable of being interesting even when I give her a time limit in which to be as interesting as possible.) The afternoon was given over to those meetings and, I’m ashamed to say, visiting the Science Museum Library and not walking out empty-handed, but in the evening I met Dave, who I went to school with and who is now working down in London. We chatted lots about his work, and my meetings, and all sorts of other things – even a bit about blogging! (And an idea for Dragon’s Den that’s either completely inspired or completely terrible. No, I’m not telling you, just in case it’s the former.) At first he wasn’t going to eat, but thankfully I wasn’t the only one eating a massive Gourmet Burger Kitchen burger in the end. That would have been awkward, even for me.

So, all in all, I had an amazing day, and my spirits have been well and truly lifted. I’m so excited for September to come and so grateful I’ve been given a second chance! All I can think to say is “YAY!”

I just finished writing a 3000-word article. This is how I feel now. (Warning: here be GIFs.)

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