Never before have I done more work in the space of a week. Tuesday, Thursday and today, I worked from 8am till 11pm, stopping only to buy food, eat, read my friends page and go to the toilet.

On Monday, my only breaks from an equally hellish regime were to make a phonecall and attend a cinematography society meeting. I didn't mean to - I was trying to go to a Creative Writing Society meeting, but I couldn't find the place where it was held, so I went to Cinematography in the hope of asking getting the chance to ask someone there where it was, but I ended up staying for the meeting. A good thing too, because I ended up having another two seconds of my fifteen minutes of fame - they needed to film people cackling like lunapaths for a short film they're making, so I thought, "Yup, I can do that."

On Wednesday, after more non-stop work, I went to a Scriptwriting meeting. It finished at 7.30. I was setting off for a goth night at 8, so rather than go home in between and accomplish nothing, I went to an indie society meeting. Also a good thing, because they fed me sweets and I had a pleasant conversation with someone there. The goth night was good and a random bloke randomly promised to play me some Sheep On Drugs at the next one. Sadly, one of my lenses decidedly to liberate itself from my glasses' bondage, so we (me, Alex and a fellow scriptwriter named Berna) spent far too long looking for the microscopic vanished screw on the dark floor. Fortunately, we found it. Unfortunately we lost it again. Fortunately, we retrieved it, and I didn't have to deal with the "I need to go to the optician's to get them fixed, but I can't see where the optician's is" conundrum.

On Friday, after more copious amounts of work, I went to a pagan soc m00t thingy, since I wanted an excuse to dress as Sister Jezebel Of THe Lost Seamen again, there were a lot of things happening on Tuesday and Thursday but nowt else on Hallowe'en itself, and paganism and pagans are generally interesting. Since I'd taken a vow of poverty for the night and was only ten minutes' walk from my hall of residence, this was a good excuse to get drunk. Due to being given loadsa sweets and averaging at 1.5 units per hour, I ended up being blisfully blisfully happy but still perfectly capable of walking (if not so good at spelling). Sadly, it was karaoke night, and not only did I have to listen to listen to two renditions of "I Want It That Way", but I got coerced into doing "The Timewarp". (Again.) Luckily, there were about six of us and only two microphones, so my useless singing abilities went unacknowledged. Afterwards, I spent a large amount of time standing at the bottom of my stairwell complaining bitterly to three poor souls about the great injustice that the kitchen below mine is painted a cheery shade of yellow, the kitchen above mine is painted in a strong calming blue, while mine is just painted in stoopid lilac which looks grey from outside.

And yesterday, after yet more non-stop totally-unerotic Data Analysis and C programming, with Scriptwriting Guild and some random hangers on, I watched "Donnie Darko" and the first five minutes of the ultraviolent film "Dead Or Alive". The latter thrilled and bothered me in equal measures, because they were the precise embodiment of vague thoughts that have been lurking in a nearly-forgotten corner of my mind since I was five years old. A few slightly strange family friends unwittingly convinced me of the existence of a menacing dizzying technicolour uberindulgent world I'd only ever glimpsed the edge of, and there it was on DVD. No, I didn't imagine it Asian and ultraviolent then, but they perfectly cemented the vision.

After hours, I finally finished the book I've been reading for the last month. It was over five hundred pages long, but this is still a dreadful rate for me - but such is the extent of my workload). Twas "The Other Boleyn Girl": rather repetitive and somewhat tedious, but it had a couple of thrilling sick horrific moments.

I actually managed to spend any money this week, apart from on consumables and bathroom cleaning products. Then today, I found a to-do list with "learn to use UNIX" on it (since apparently this may prove useful later on in my course), so I went to Amazon to buy a teach yerself book. But, you know, you get free delivery if you spend £25 there, and I was going to buy more Iron Maiden albums before the gig anyway, so . . . whoops. I don't think I've gone over £70 in total for once, though.

I've also got going with my National Novel Writing Month novel (though I refrained from doing so on Friday night). My wordcount exceeds what it should be by now, but as always, I'm sick of the novel already. Two years ago, I started writing a story with an excellent setting, but since I was too wrapped up in self-loathing to figure out a plot, I gave up, and started writing an experimental true novel instead, which was too boring to finish. Last year, I started writing about twins, one of whom was a hermaphrodite, and the self-destructive behaviour they found themselves engaging in after witnessing the murder of their mother with whom they had a rather sick relationship. But it was too dark and hateful for anyone to empathise with the characters so I gave up on that too. This year, I thought I'd avoid both the problem of having to work out a plot and it being too dark by writing a silly sarcastic nostalgia-fest, based on my school and university experiences. Sadly, it's so fluffy I might well choke. I was hoping it might be fit for publication once tidied up, but do I really want my first novel to be a romantic comedy? I think not!

Next year: start coming up with likeable characters and a decent plot in September. Ok?

As they say in bad slash stories, bed. Now. Despite all this work, I haven't *quite* finished it all yet, so an early start tomorrow is required.