Roar!

I want to apologise for being absent from the posting, but I wont. I spent Monday through to Wednesday of this week studying, trying to get an economics essay for my Marxism class done. Wore myself out though, so didn't do any work yesterday, which is definitely a shame. I'll make up for it today (before I go see Alice in Wonderland tonight!), hopefully.

There is a boy in my philosophy class that was telling me how he get's his work done. Basically, he switches the parts of his brain that functions like a normal human and enters study mode. Aim seems to be to turn himself into a boring (but focused) person for the day. I am actually really jealous of his ability to do this. Focusing isn't something I've ever been very good at... unless I'm playing video games; I can focus on those pretty well - for hours. I remember sitting up through out the night playing on my Super Nintendo instead of sleeping. Now I wont allow myself a games consol in the house... my brother took the ps2 to his house, far far away and I stopped my mum getting me a ps3 for Christmas, just 'cause I know I'd never get anything done.

Trouble is, there's still enough to distract me from working. Normally, I need a 'beat-myself-up-day' which involves me sitting in front of the Mac, staring at the work I have to do and just not touching it until I'm angry enough at myself for being so ridiculous that I start reading and taking notes. The next day or two are the reading and planning days. Once I've started I'm normally ok and can carry on for ages, especially with my old friend, Mr Caffeine helping me out. But then I'm tired and stressed and need a nothing day all over again before the process can loop round for me to actually do the writing part. I'd love to just skip those nothing days... They're such a waste of time! Other people can study every day, all day. Why can't I?

If anyone knows the trick to this whole taking control of your mind malarky, let me in on it!

Will power is a strange concept I reckon. Basically it's the faculty that picks what it is that I want and it decides what I want based on the information about the options that are stored in my intellect. But everything has positives and negatives so it's not a clear cut decision... so how is it the will picks which one it wants to go for? The will is just part of me, so it's me that's picking and I imagine the choice is based on desire or something, right? So, what does that mean...?

What desire am I fulfilling by sitting around avoiding working? I know that I have the desire to not fail, but that's further away than my desire to avoid stress. Short term trumps long term. So my question to you, is how can I convince my brain to do what I want it to do and focus on those long term desires a little bit. At least for long enough to get these 9 essays done!

Right, that's enough from me. I shall return to this economics essay of mine!

Hello Budget

Today, I am putting myself on a budget. I've been off a budget since the 13th of December or something and almost feel as though I've bought at least one new item a day since.

Oh Amazon. Oh Ebay.

Considering I am unemployed and need to save £3.5k for my magazine journalism course once I graduate I really need to sort this out. I will be taking a year old first - So I've given myself a £100 a week budget (not inc. my travel which is £118 a month! London is ridiculous). Though it just occured to me I have to pay my phone bill - damn it! So I will need to recalculate that.

Because I did a bit of online shopping today and spend £50 I am only allowed to spend a maximum of £6 a day for the rest of the week - I probably spend more than that on food normally. Though that bloody phone bill is going to mess that up!

I just paid my phone bill - which has gone up thanks to VAT going up - I now have £4 to last until Sunday. I also just bought the Hope For Haiti soundtrack which helped, and yeah I know I'm sat here in the mist of talking about how broke I am and then I go and buy an album, but they need that money more than I do, right?

And before you start saying to yourself 'what the hell, where does all this money come from if she's unemployed??' - I'm a student. Over in England student's get student loans, and if they're parents don't earn much they get some free money too. So that's what I live off, borrowed money.

And with this borrowed money I buy books and dvds, mostly. Sometimes clothes. Sometimes food. No, food all the time - I am a bit of a fatty... I should work on that. I spent £20 on a philosophy book just a few days ago! Books should not cost £20, I'm sorry. To be fair, it is a good book and will probably help me write my essay - which I should be working on rather than this right now...

Any of you lot know anything about the pre-Socratics? I'm doing a Parmenides essay 'cause I think he's pretty cool. Plus he wrote in verse which I quite enjoy. What is is and what isn't isn't - expand.

Ha! All non philosophers just read that and thought, 'well yeah Pennie, what the fuck?' And to you I bid you to delve into this and spend some of your evenings exploring what it all means and understand how frustrating paradoxes are. But as frustrating as it is when I don't understand, those moments that I feel like I do make it all worth it.

So now that I'm back on a budget let's see what cheap ways around a life in London I can come across. Perhaps if I just drink more coffee I wont be hungry during the day and can just eat when I get home. In first year I just had a hot chocolate for lunch everyday and then made dinner when I got home. I was skinnier back then. I need to make sure to be drinking the 50p coffee from uni instead of spending £3 on it in Starbucks! I actually think this is going to be my plan... I'll start from tomorrow. I will think about leaving my card at home to avoid temptation - can't spend what I don't have... only, what happens if I need money and have none?

Please share any ideas you might have - I know as a 3rd year I should be used to this student living stuff by now but I'm clearly not... But when my lush new winter boots come through the post I'm sure they will have been worth it.

This was a pretty lame entry - Guess I should get back to doing real work!