You might have thought that after eighteen and a bit years of full-time education, when you have three weeks in which to write a presentation worth 6% of your final grade, it might occur to you that it's best to start writing it, like, slightly earlier than 8pm in the evening before you're due to give it.

Seemingly not, though.

Well, I have spent the last three weeks suffering from worse-than-ever bouts of paralysis. I'm much better at getting out of bed than I was in Australia, but when I'm at work, I find myself getting furious at all the drudgery and administrata I'm forced to carry out. I can't wait to get home and get the essential tasks for the day out of the way, so I can get on with something fun and satisfying. But when I get there, I just collapse in front of the computer, trying to find new good online journals to read (a thankless task if ever there was), rating the tracks on Terrorizer compilations and complicating my Sims' love lives. (Not even Sims 2 as my computer's far too feak and weeble for my to even use any of the original add-ons at any speed, never mind the new version.) If I have to write a two-line e-mail, I'll take a break from it half way through, and leave it in my drafts folder for days before I can face completing it.

And obviously, the more I avoid, the more terrified and hateful I become. Which is a pity, because, as with most things I put off and off and off, I actually ended up enjoying writing my presentation (which featured a illustration depicting a tree shaped like a mobile phone and some squedgehogs).

So, I stayed up til 2am finishing it. Then I couldn't sleep, because the statistical surveys of metalheads in it (which, of course, didn't actually exist, but try telling me that then) made no sense, and I knew I'd have to correct them when I got up. Then I got up at 6.30 to practise it. And I was already suffering from the last six weeks' sleep deficiencies . . .

On arriving in York, I went to the metaaaaaal shop and got "Black Sun" by Primal Fear and "Dominion Reptilian" by Hearse. Hearse are mint! It was a long struggle for me to get to grips with their singer's vocals for Arch Enemy, but he sounds perfect on the Hearse material, and the musicianship's superb, and the melodies are just the way, ah ha, ah ha, I like them! Ah ha, ah ha!

Went to campus, saw various people, and then it was pre-sen-ta-tion time, come on! Strangely, none of us were permitted to ask questions after the presentations, apparently on the grounds that we might try and sabotage each others' work. Which is just slightly mental, as we could easily do this just by watching each others' presentations and being distracting. More to the point, the seven of us could hardly get along better than we do, a fact that must be obvious to the lecturer-type-folk examining us.

Anyway, I'm no stranger to public speaking, and yet, for all the presentations I've been forced to give, all the debate speeches I've voluntarily made, and all the eleven-person meetings I've chaired, I still always turn into a shivering quivering wreck. Except this time! I was fine! (And my classmates liked my topiary and squedgehogs, even if they gave the examiners cause to wonder about my mental health.)

All I can attribute this to is that I think I've become more laid back in some ways in recent months. [Note to self: always proofread your entries. That nearly ended up saying "got laid more", which would have given quite the wrong impression.] Of course, I'm still totally neurotic most of the time. I saved my Powerpoint presentation to three disks, e-mailed it to myself and uploaded it to my webspace. I phoned the talking clock this morning so I could set my watch to it and be certain about train times. I checked I hadn't lost my train tickets and CDs at least six times over the course of the day. When I got to York, I checked my map to make sure I knew where I was going, even though I lived there for seven months. When I got the bus to the station at the end of the day, I refused to read on it, lest I missed my stop, and the same for the train home when it was ten minutes from my destination. While waiting at York and Newcastle stations, I checked the platform information every five minutes. And so on.

But Tony said I was a lot more confident about driving, which is true - I still don't like doing it, but it's no longer a case of, "Argh, we're all going to diiiiie!" and seemingly this - not confidence, but lack of over-concernedness - seems to extend to presentation-giving too. Well, I did well enough in my last one, despite quaking in my extra-large boots, and now I've stopped being an academic in extremis, I can't bring myself to be overly worried about my degree result anyway. Just as long as I pass, and I think I will.

I suppose this marks the absolute end of my student days - for the time being, at any rate. It hasn't sunk in though.

After the presentations, we went to the pub for a bit. I didn't drink as I had a headache, and set off home at 7. I could have spent the night chez Teresa or Alex, but given the headache and tiredness, a few quiet hours of reading Terrorizer and Classic Rock ont train seemed preferable to going oot.

Sadly, metal magazines make Zed buy yet more CDeez, so I've just ordered an olde Megadethe albumme and "The Grudge" by Mortiis (in addition to all the stuff I bought at the weekend: Tyr's first album (as Tyr are mint!), the Little Match Girl album (I love it when I stumble across brilliant MP3s on my hard drive I've no recollection of ever listening to), "1977" by Ash (always meant to own this but never got round to it) and "Showbiz" by Muse (ditto)).