Finished project! Yaaaaaay! If I choose to, I never have to read another mathematical paper as long as I live!

But don't you like reading mathematical papers? I hear you ask. No I don't. Now textbooks, they're ok. They're allowed to be long, so the better ones go, "Don't understand this concept? Fear not! We'll go on and on about it until you do, by way of examples, exercises, humour and unrelated but interesting facts." Papers, by the necessity of having to be short go, "Don't understand? Too bad!" Worse, papers about Mathematical Ecology nearly always either 1) are incomprehensible without the aid of ten other papers in Serbo Croat and cost two thousand pounds to read once or 2) talk rubbish, either on account of them being written by Ecologists who don't have the rigorous mathematical training you do, or because mathematical ecology isn't an area that yields many conclusive results, but it wouldn't do to admit that four months of intensive study has shown absolutely beep all, certainly not!

I can't feel terribly excited though, because my future at the moment is so grimly uncertain. The route through life I believe I want requires money and success I don't yet know I'm capable of acquiring, and to even find out if I can get them will be Difficult and require much Courage and Determination. An element of luck will determine whether I get to take it, and if I do, will it actually be as good as I hope? And if I don't, can I ever be content with an alternative?

For now, though, I am to be exiled to Cumbria for a year's hard filing. Oh yoj. Still, must think of Bloodstock, The Cardiacs, Motorhead and free digital TV.

Spent the evening revising for my Ecological Modelling and Dutch exams.